KRS 131214. Amber colour with a beige head. Aroma is bread, caramel, dried fruits. grass. Flavour is roasted malt, hop, bread, caramel, dried fruits, grass. Medium body. Ordinary beer.

On tap at Café Refuge, Lier, Belgium, Friday 20th March 2015 Pours amber, very lively with a huge frothy sticky white head. A fairly safe beer, bit too cold but it’s fine if a little thin. Malty, watery sweetness, some red berries. Ok. A5 A4 T6 P3 Ov11 2.9

*Old rating, 30cl, 6%, best before 13/12/06. Würzig-karamelliges Bier, Hauch von Getreide. Mild-weich mit moderater Herbe und leicht süßlicher Malz-Getreidenote auf der Zunge.

Bottle. Clear amber with small white head. Some caramel, very light spices and a touch of orange. Light sweet with light bitter finish. Watery. Nothing offensive, but not that good either.

17/12/2014 @Midwinter school Leupegem. Amber coloured with stable white head. Aroma & taste : malts, some fruitiness, sweet caramel, soft, not lasting taste.

Bottle. It pours an almost clear body, dark golden in amber and with a small, dense, light beige head. The aroma has some bread and caramel, with dried fruits and a grassy hint. It has a nice bitterness in the flavor, but it’s too bready and caramel-ish I think. Full body, quite dry on the palate and with a nice carbonation level. Lasting caramel finish with a little fruityness and some bitterness. Rather boring this one, but its sort of nice anyway. 141213

Bottle 330ml @ Geokkjer
Pours clear copper with a off-white head. Aroma has notes of malt, caramel and yeast. Taste is medium sweet and light bitter. Body is light to medium, texture is thin to oily, carbonation is soft.

Winter version of Palm Spéciale, a treat to the devoted Palm drinkers since 1947 (when the brewery celebrated its 200th anniversary). A bit stronger, maltier, ’thicker’ and darker than the regular Palm Spéciale. Pours a clear and pure, coppery amber colour, notably darker than the Palm Spéciale, with a bit more fizz; the head has the same off-white colour and moussy structure, but has better retention and leaves more lacing on the edge of the glass. Aroma is more appealing too: less off-putting ’side effects’ of pasteurization, less DMS, less rotting fruit (though it is still there). I get iron here too, next to walnuts, dry cookies, cake, dough, butterscotch, biscuit, plum, banana, dried leaves, orange peel, but everything in a subdued, ’quiet’ way; the aroma is still on the weak side, especially for a winter beer, but in any case stronger than that of the regular version. Taste is also better, restrained fruitiness much like the original (faint hints of banana, pear and orange), but a somewhat thicker and deeper maltiness, cookies, caramel, walnuts, tingling carbonation, metallic ’backing vocals’, a tad more oily feel but equally slick and smooth, with the same subdued grassy hoppiness in the finish, which shows a light bitterness but mostly lingering malt sweetness, like the regular. A bit more complex, a bit more worthwile and a bit more ’filling’ than Palm Spéciale, I’d rather classify this as the archetype of the ’spéciale belge’ style. Still: this is just your average, ’daily’ session ale, so do not bother coming to Belgium just for this (as if anyone would, I know).