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

Tripel hopped with Sorachi Ace, refermented with champagne yeast and ‘aged’ on oak chips – I personally think more attempts should be made at re-inventing the old blondes, dubbels and tripels of Belgium into craft beer with an international appeal, usually it’s the same old worn-out formula brewers here tend to follow without much courage to think of deviations. Anyway, this first beer by what is apparently a new ‘bierfirma’ in Limburg, intended to be paired with Angus beef apparently, shows a very thick and foamy, egg-white, creamy, membrane-lacing head and misty peach blonde robe with pale amberish tinge. Aroma of ripe peach, almond, caramel, banana, touch subtle oak wood indeed, pineapple, bitterroot, sugarbread, dried thyme and lemon zest (the latter two certainly coming from the Sorachi Ace and piercing through subtly, but clearly). Fruity onset, ‘cleanly’ estery with impressions of peach, pineapple and light banana, sweet with softish carb and softish, fluffy mouthfeel; caramelly and bready malt body upon which the fruitiness lingers, leading to a rooty, spicy and dried citrus peel-like hop bitterness adding only the subtlest Sorachi Ace herbalness and zestiness – while the oak chips provide equally faint dryish tannins, however dwarfed by the maltiness, fruitiness and eventual warming, gin-ish alcohol of the beer. No truly recognizable champagne yeast effect were to be found. Remarkably decent from a technical viewpoint, entirely flawless and made with care, but the elements that could have really set this beer apart have sadly been kept much too subtle. Needs a lot more oakiness and Sorachi Ace, guys! Then again, the next one coming up seems to be again an ‘experimental’ beer – again intended to match with a certain food – made with apricot and Hungarian pálinka – hopefully this Heerd project has the guts to take that one a step further into differing from what the average, non-geeky Belgian beer drinker tends to expect.