Bottled at Monk’s Café, Stockholm. Clear amber, brief head. Caramelly grassy nose. Sweet and fairly light bodied with clean, hard mouthfeel. Fairly neutral at first, as it warms more caramel and light cardamom spicyness seeps out. Low bitterness.

0,25lt Bottle. One of the few beers that I never tried from a new liquor store. Interesting amber color , huge foamy head. Malty aroma, caramel and fruit tastes. Pretty good beer, a class better than the blonde version.

75cl bottle from Carrefour, Calais. Attractive clear amber colour with a lasting thick white head. Malty aroma. Candy sugar, bit of whisky even in the mouth flavours. Nice hoppy tingly finish. Really nice amber actually. Good balance of malt and hop.

Pretty aged bottle Brown-amber beer with positively ghastly chunks of funk; big bubbles not able to sustain the disparate head. Very fresh-fruity nose, carbonated fruitjuice-like (pineapple?), liquorice and caramel. A fruit caramel! Liquorice, bitterish flavour, partly roasted, burnt malt, partly wood. Rosewater and caramel flavours. Again a quite fruity character. Very little apparent oxidation, no acidity. Slick, because of the protein precipitation, medium bodied, thinner texture than when young. Not bad, has always been one of France’s best - and few original - abbey-style beers. Amber was the original colour. Drank this one from the tap once - in Crespin!

Rating for the original Réserve St Landelin from the Rimaux brewery, 40+ years after it was purchased (thanks to Stef!) Transparant head, fast gone over slightly veiled amber beer. 8 Madeirea, port, nutcake with booze and dried fruits as apricot. 8 Light sourish taint, madeirisation, old vintage port, again a bit nutty. Lots of fruity esters. 8.5 Light, still some carbonated feel. Thinning by age, but not really lean. 3 WHY do almost all pre 1985 beers age so more gracefully than contemporaries? What has changed so fundamentally? 8

Oranges, sugar candy and all spice dancing around in the nose. The body was yeasty and off dry organish all leading to a rounded earthy finish. Not bad.