7

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

Bottled@Tuulensuu, Tampere. Yellowish orange colour with a mediumsized foamy white head. Aroma is fruity, floral, some grainy, bready and herbal tones. Flavour is spicy, yeasty, some fruity, floral, mild sweet malty tones along with some slight green apple skins and quite sweet tones.

6.1

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

Clear reddish brown colour, white head. Malty aroma, caramel, candy and jam. Somewhat sweet flavour, candy, malts and elderberry. Sweet(ish) finish, elderberry. I like elderberries (vlierbessen), I guess I was expecting more of this beer.
(from 75cL bottle @ Leuven Innovation, Leuven 2015)

7.6

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

750 ml bottle at Délices & Caprices in Brussels. Beautiful light foggy golden body with champagne style carbonation under a moderate sized white head. Rather mild, but delicate aroma of fruit, elderflowers, spicy yeast, white sugar, hint of lemon and some sour apple. Flavor is really delicate as well, sweet and fruity with elderflowers, sugar, a touch of lemon and pale malt. Body is balanced and the aftertaste feels nice even if it’s quite light. A lovely champagne style ale spiced with elderflowers.

5.8

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5

Aperitif beer from De Vlier from a 75 cl bottle. Unusual, but innovative concept: mixed fermentation (i.e. adding Lactobacillus plus refermentation with champagne yeast), mixed grain composition and added elderberry syrup... Fascinating, curious to dive into this one. Pours a rustic, deep old gold colour with pinkish hue, lightly hazy, under a loudly crackling, loose, champagne-like, off-white head leaving a stable rim on the edge of the glass, but otherwise dissolving quickly. In the end and after adding the deposit, there is no head left at all and the liquid has become murky, looking quite like some home-made apple or pear juice. Aroma has lots of things going on: eldeberry blossom indeed, acacia honey, pear juice impression again, unsweetened yoghurt, canned apricot, pineapple, wilted cut flowers, raspberry, lemon peel, white lambrusco, quite a lot of whisky-like alcohol and ’animalistic’ odours of freshly fermented farmland, horse stable and even stale sweat - weird, and it took me a while to get used to it and I could not really decide whether it attracted me or not, it was more fascination than attraction per se. Crisp, candy sweet onset with vivid but refined, very lambrusco-like carbonation; sweet grapes, strawberry, overripe nectarine, some banana sweetness and a fresh orange peel-like acidity make for a lively onset in which quite a lot happens. This party of sweet fruits and champagne-like fizz goes on throughout the palate, there is some lactic acidity somewhere but only restrainedly so (though this may increase with age), as well as a sweet honeyish basic taste, likely representing the elderberry syrup; a dull wheat sourishness is there too. Finish brings a touch of floral hops but not really bittering; the ending is dryish, a bit prosecco-like, with a dash of liqueurish alcohol warmth, even slightly burning, but the sweetness continues - too long for my taste, actually, even cloying a bit. Citrussy acidity also lingers on and brings some balance for this basic syrupy sweetness; the animalistic odours return retronasally. Sweet and sour as well as complexely fermented, this is a fairly complex and very unusual champagne beer indeed; I do not mind the bacterial effects in the nose too much, but I do find it too sugary and the alcohol is not too well hidden and it is clear that the different flavours do not work together all too well. Interesting, though, and I can easily see how this brew divides opinions... I cannot say I sincerely enjoyed it, but I am glad I tasted this experiment.

4.8

Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 5

Sampled from bottle @ Leuven Innovation Beer Festival. Hazy yellowish color, virtually no head. Smell and taste sourish, some kind of red fruit yeast, fruitpeel sour and a touch of sugar. Average body and carbonation. Meh.

5.8

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 6

Bottle sample @ Leuven Beer Innovation 2015, shared with the RB Belgian crew. Dorée sur léger voile trouble, col blanc. Arôme au bouquet très fleuri avec entre autre ce sucre de sureau, note de pomme, fine effluve citrique et léger malt caramel. Palais garde, comme sur la saison, une impression de cidre venant peut-être de leur levure? Effervescence encore moyenne et tirant vers le haut, retrouve peu le côté fleuri du sureau qui est ici censé être plus sucré. Palais épais d’avoine. Astringence et fine note aigrelette ponctuent cette dégustation pour un résultat peu convaincant. Ce n’est pas mauvais, mais il y a juste des éléments qui en les additionnant font que ces bières manquent de finition ou alors je manque carrément le but de cette bière.

7

Zeer complex. Eerder zoet (wrang zoet van de vlier), erg sprankelend, licht zuurtje. Alcoholsmaak zoals in de betere champagnes

4

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 3 | Flavor - 3 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 3

Thanks for sharing! Sampled 750 ml. bottle @ Leuven Innovation Beer Festival. Milky hazy orange,.. Nose is terrible, fizzy, lactic, off, highly unpleasant plus on top it smells like it is mixed with cheap jam. Taste is hugely sweet cheap jam mixed with nasty off vinegar, lactic sourness, totally off with the massive white sugar sweetness,… Syrupy,… Awful in my opinion but what do I know?