Triporteur Basta

05/07/2018 @home - 33cl bottle from Bierhalle deconinck. Clear dark yellow, huge rocky white head. Nose is at first bitter hops, some fruits and some spices (like the ones I remember from Mama Miracoli), when warmer I would say some pasta, but that could be the idea. Taste is bitter hops, bit fruits, the spices, bit dough, not tomato to detect.

New Triporteur beer, the brand that is known for experimenting with the malt profiles of their beers by adding other sources of starch such as bread; this time, the malt was 'enriched' with pasta and the yeast used for fermentation was cultivated on Italian tomato sauce (or passata?) and olive oil, in order to create some Italian cuisine fantasy... Weird idea, I've been curious about this one for quite a while. Tightly membrane-lacing, dense, frothy, egg-white, fairly thick and hops-enhanced but eventually slowly breaking head over an initially clear, deep and warm orange-hued 'old gold' coloured beer with lively sparkling further sustaining the head; misty and a tad deeper orange with sediment. Rather 'dank IPA'-like, but also recognisably 'Belgian ale' aroma of dried toasted onions, old oregano, yellow grapefruit peel, cheese crackers, rainwater, pine resin, white pepper, unripe apricot, 'naturel' potato chips, damp straw, very light hint of bubblegum. Cleanly fruity onset, low in sweetness with early hints at bitterness and even a somewhat salty edge, unripe banana, some green pear, basic sourish note reinforced by spritzy, very minerally but - for a Belgian ale rather than an IPA - tolerable carbonation. Slick, bit oily body, bread crust-, cracker- and peanut-ish malts with a toasty touch to it, but nothing reminiscent of pasta (which is perhaps not a bad thing per se); thin metallic edges, disturbing a little bit in the middle. Hop bitterness is apparent early on and only grows stronger from the middle onwards, eventually becoming very rooty, tonic water-like and peppery, with drying, spicy effect and sticking to the root of the tongue for a long time, while the minerally and metallic accents linger and some dried grapefruit peel- and dried bitter herb-like notes are pushed upwards retronasally. Ends bitter but still juicy from the remainders of the malts - yet no tomato, olive oil or pasta flavours are to be discovered here. I was already wondering how on Earth they were going to get those flavours in and still make it a decent beer, so it's probably a good thing that they are not perceptible. Could go well with a spicy pizza, though... Not a bad beer as such, pleasant enough to drink, firmly hop bitter and smooth with decent - if noble and not so much New World - hop aroma, I can drink more than one of these; just not quite delivering what it promises, but then I did not expect an actual pasta taste to be present here to begin with. Nice Belgian style IPA (clearly inspired by the West Coast IPA tradition), in all, but some more exotic (citrusy) hop aroma and less of that metallic accent could have made this even better.

Another peculiar Pasta-beer. Just a few days before purchasing this, I drank a pizza beer. Has craft gone to far? Well the pizza beer was kinda nice, still. Curious if this one will live up to it, or wether it'll be a huge disgusting, marketing-fueled idea rather than an actual unique and good beer. I had some doubts (even though I truly respect this brewery ) so it stood in my fridge for about 2 weeks before I had the guts to take my chance and open this one up. The beer pours ambercolored, with a big white head that is medium-low in stability. Quite a bit visual, fine bubbles rising up in the beer, stabilizing the foam where deemed possible. The aroma shows hops. Tropical, fresh, tad grassy, Tomato ? Didn''t find it. I searched, still nothing. Taste is sharp. malty at the back ( mild ambermaltyness , tad toasty ) with a low intensity on the maltyness.I guess pasta doesn't give much flavor to the beer, but takes up some space for maltyness which would have been more prominent with an all-grain beer. Hops are showing , but mildly (in the aroma ) , providing notes of what I think is a combination between something like Simcoe and Amarillo, but more to the Simcoe-ish ( resinous) side. The hoparoma fades remarkably fast, leaving a long, bitter finish. Tomato's are abscent troughout the whole experience. Which might just be a good thing for the taste, but is a dissapointement after the false hope the bottle provided. I thought this was actually going to taste like liquid pasta with tomatoe sauce. Its not. It's 'just' an IPA with too little (to me) hoparoma. Pretty Belgian yeast character as well, subpressed by the bitterness. As when the yeast is added, and the beer has warmed a bit, the slightest notes of tomato start being noticeable. However, I'm not entirely sure if it's my brain telling me lies to please me, or the beer just really needs the sediment and / or warmer serving temperatures. Bottom line : medium-hoppy Belgian IPA with a long lasting bitterness. For a beer labeled and promoted this 'unique' and 'special' and 'PASTA, contains tomatoes' I feel a bit let down. Also, I want to palce a sidenote that I don't really believe, or dont have the knowledge to understand, they added Olive Oil to the beer. If that were so, I believe the slightest bit of it would contain enough grease / fat to completely ruin all chances on a stable foam. Which this beer does seem to have...