8

@ 2017

6.6

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 6.5

18th November 2017
Hazy gold beer, small white head. Palate is light and semi dry, decent fine minerally carbonation. Thin malts. Mild lemon into homemade lemonade. Modest savoury vibe. Dry seltzer. Pretty dry finish brings a trace of lime peel. Like the lemon here but it could be more punchy and this is pretty dry.

6.8

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7

Foeders. Aroma of citrus, orange,tart and acidic sourness. Taste of mild tart, sweet orange, pomegranate, malt, soft sourness and a soft finish. Not bad, not great.

6

Sporo jasnych owocow, malo dosc kolendry, fajnie pijalne... jedno z lepszych gose jak dla mnie, 3.3 ;)

6.8

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7

Bottle. Etre Gourmet. No mention of pomegranate on the list of ingredients. Very hazy, dark straw colour. Healthy, bubbly, noisy, white head. Nose has sweet wheat. Missus reckons it smells like the cellar of the Cross Keys, when new casks have just been tapped. Which means nothing to anyone else. Bit of a preserved lemon thing. Definitely briny. Taste is salty and a little dry. Some worty sweetness. Clean enough mouthfeel. Rolling, soft fizz. Sweet and salt to finish. Ok. Not the best from Brabant.

6.8

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7

Bottle sample @ LIBF’17, thanks to the RB-InBev Belgian crew for the share. Couleur paille assez trouble, col blanc. Arôme offre un bouquet franchement axé sur un bouquet de pain, du ’bready’ dominant avec un citronné modéré en rétro mais complètement éclipsé par la levure. Retrouve rien en terme de pomme grenade. Palais est similaire, assez épais et rond au niveau des grains, c’est pas mal mais très centré sur un aspect de pain entier, le tout renforcé par un léger citrique le tout semblant plus se rapprocher d’une raddler qu’autre chose. Également, je ne trouve en rien la sensation habituelle de pomme-grenade.

6.4

Appearance - 2 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5

A few isolated attempts at Gose, the once forgotten style of sour, spiced and salted German wheat beer that has been resurrected by the global craft beer movement, have apparently been made in Belgium recently, but this particular one has been in the pipelines for months now and I’m assuming it could be the first one to draw wider attention than those - also very recent - under-exposed experiments by BBP, Vliegende Paard and even Cabardouche. Lots of pressure on the 75 cl bottle with audible ’crackling’, egg-white, loosely knit, very coarse head fizzing away like the ’head’ on a coke an eventually vanishing altogether, over an immediately cloudy, straw blonde beer with peachy hue. Aroma of bath foam and soap, lots of Granny Smith apples, old cheese, soapy coriander, milk gone sour, lavender, lady’s perfume even to a certain extent, dough, green pear, raw potato starch, wakame, some bitter green herb juice, sweetbread, some light yet bitterish honey even, touch of banana, subtle hints of raw white cabbage, ripe apricot, gooseberries, moist chalk, freshly cut grass, green tea, lemon-scented hand soap, unsugared Greek yoghurt. Some lively fruitiness in the onset, hints of unripe banana alongside hard Conférence pear, unripe green gooseberry and some starfruit, but in all quite restrained, with a vague salty touch on the sides of the tongue, salty enough for the style but not too outspoken, a bit seaweed-like from a distance; carbonation is on the spritzy side initially but becomes softer in the end. Mouthfeel is very thoroughly soapy yet slick and smooth, with doughy malt notes in the middle accompanied by a ’deeper’ wheat sourishness - and again soapiness. Coriander seed only further accentuates this soapiness in the end as it is supposed to do, but in a not overly spicy manner; meanwhile the saltiness subtly lingers here and there, but to my taste this aspect could have been more pronounced; the apple factor is present in the background and persists a bit too much to my personal taste, while the pomegranate aspect could have been a tad more dominant if you insist to impose it on this style of beer to begin with, as in this dosis, it is close to completely unnoticeable. A certain faraway ’exotic’ fruitiness is there, but adds more sourness in the end phase of this peculiar beer than outspoken pomegranate effect. The lactic, drying tartness stretches through the whole beer but, like the saltiness, remains very soft and a bit superficial, like the creaminess of a sourish yoghurt - though it still manages to become sharper and more forwarded in the finish, establishing a very quenching and refreshing effect. Coriander, a chalky hint and wheat soapiness rule the finish, hops are nowhere to be seen apart from a very, very dim floral bitterish touch faraway in the end; earthy, eventually a tad starchy yeastiness also adds some ’drought’ but the general impression remains exaggeratedly soapy, with insufficient saltiness to counter it. In all, too soapy for my taste, both in the nose and in the mouth, and lacking a bit in ’spicy’ saltiness - a pinch of (sea?) salt more could uplift the whole recipe. Too much emphasis on the coriander and too little on the salt, destabilized head and rather murky look - this could have been carried out better I suppose, but it is still among the first Belgian Goses so it does fulfil some kind of pioneer function and may become an influential first step in the future, as some other Brabant creations have proven to be. Still a very refreshing beer, in all, too soapy for me but I prefer to love it for its pioneering role - once again, the adventurous Fred du Brabant proves to be a brewer that deserves intense scrutiny. Enjoyed it, after all, even though I expected a bit more ’oomph’, but I had no problems working my way through an entire 75 cl bottle...

5.8

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6

Milky pale blond colour. Aroma and flavour have light citric and red fruit. Very smooth texture. Full bodied for a Gose. Not salty.

7

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7

F: small, white. C: dirty amber, hazy. A: fruity, pomegranate, floral herbal, hint of salty. T: taste is better than aroma, fruity, pomegranate, salty, brett, gooseberry, medium body, medium carbonation, enjoyed, thanks to tderoeck and kraddel for sharing beers today! Sampled from tap @ ZBF 2017 Leuven.