April 1, 2017
Tap@Taphouse, Copenhagen - Golden yellow coloured pour with white head and lacing. Sweet fruity and malty, light yeasty notes, hay, citrus fruity and nice hoppy profile, pretty easy drinking for the abv.

(Bottle) Hazy golden colour with frothy, off white head. Fruity, spicy nose with notes of apricots, crisp-bread, orange, hay, grain, pears and herbs. Fruity, spicy taste with apricots, orange peel, bread, hay, clove, grain, elderflowers and a balanced spicy bitternes in the finish. Medium body, with a touch of sweetness. Complex, harmonious and tasty. Very nice.

Noice!

Senne's Belgian IPA, with different hops each year; my sample was apparently bottled in late January 2020, but I assume this is still the 2019 version (with Slovenian hops if I remember correctly), as each new batch of this beer is brewed yearly in December on the brewery's anniversary day - implying that Brussels Calling 2020 is yet to be made, in spite of the ratings already present for it on Untappd... The fact that they use the same label each year, only changing the date stamp, does not help in solving this confusion, unfortunately. Anyway, this 2019 edition shows a medium thick, tightly 'Brugse kant'-like lacing, off-white, fine-grained and tiny-bubbled, slowly breaking head on an initially clear, warm 'metallic' golden robe with khaki tinge and small, disparate bubbles rising up here and there; turns increasingly misty with more of the bottle added to the glass, until cloudy peach blonde. Aroma of stale lime juice, kumquat, lemon zest (growing stronger when warming up), green kiwi, fresh white bread dough, halfripe banana, withering leek, fainter hints of stale sweat, melon, dried dill, old bread, raw sole or other flatfish, cat pee and passionfruit faraway in the background. Crisp, fruity onset, subdued in sweetness but still offering impressions of pear, kiwi, apple and some banana, lively carbonated with minerally 'stings' to the tongue and palate, supple mouthfeel; white-bready and bit old cracker-like maltiness with these 'yellow-green' fruity notes continuing, evolving more and more into that typical Senne yeast spiciness (dill, white pepper, dandelion) matching with a strong, resinous, grapefruit pith-like hop bitterness, depositing another layer of spiciness and leafiness onto the tongue's root. Yeasty aspects linger, in a spicy and mildly bready way, to remind you that this is a 'Belgian' IPA and intentionally so, and also that it is de la Senne you're drinking. Belgian IPA indeed, with emphasis more on the 'Belgian' than on the 'IPA', although in the finish, I do get a quite modern, hazy IPA-like feeling, with a hint of dankness I associate more with American, British or Scandinavian IPAs. Interesting as always with this brewery, but it must be said: this bottle probably wasn't stored in the best conditions and at ten months of age, it is probably losing a lot of its aromatic qualities already. I had some of the earlier editions fresh from tap and those serving conditions are to be preferred way over a ten months old bottle, that much is clear. Still a rich, interesting, powerful enough Senne ale, though!

Zeer goede hoppige/zoete nasmaak. Op het moment van drinken niet heel spectaculair.

33 cl bottle at Chinaski Lavapiés. A straw-colored hazy pour with an off-white, thick head. Aroma is low: peach, grass, a hint of mint. Bone-dry, crisp, very bitter. Long-lasting hoppy finish.