Just when I thought I had the last of this brand, AB InBev comes up with two more variations. Since people will ask my opinion on this no matter what, I bought a 75 cl bottle from Delhaize and I’m already regretting it upon opening. Pours a clear, lightly orangey ’old gold’ colour, no ’life’ or fizz whatsoever, with a moussy but loose, complexely lacing, regularly shaped, snow white head on top of it. Aroma puts me off immediately: cooked spinach, mustard and honey vinaigrette, burning rubber, chicken broth, industrially prepared white raisins indeed, cooked corn sugar, rotting tomatoes (pun intended), lavender soap, hint of iron, canned apricots and a weak suggestion of toasted bread. Sugary sweet onset, cloying and lemonade-like without that horrible ascorbic effect, rather honeyish, weird herbal flavours (green tea, Stevia, raw white cabbage), soft carbo (and certainly artificially added), corn and malt extract, metallic ’tinge’, sickly honeyish sweetness continuing and persisting till well into the finish, where nothing else happens anymore except for an unpleasant, even ’sticky’, glue-like chemical wryness, whilst actual hop bitterness remains low, though faintly noticeable. An almost astringent, plastic-like ’chemicality’ lingers along with tenaciously cloying ’sugariness’, with the latter winning the battle - which is not necessarily a good thing in this case. Based on the description on the label (and the name), this is apparently a raisin-flavoured, lower ABV edition of Leffe Blonde. I profoundly hate Leffe Blonde as it is, but the AB InBev bankers apparently are perverse enough to come up with an even worse concoction. I have very little sympathy for artificially flavoured beers to begin with, even less for the Leffe brand, and still less for AB InBev as a whole so it is hard to be fair about this, but I think most people who sincerely love beer, will agree that this thing never should have existed in the first place. I passionately hope no one will buy this so that it is withdrawn from the market as soon as possible - Belgium is slowly becoming obsolete enough as it is, we do not need AB InBev to mass-market horrible beers like this to enhance this process. I am sincerely considering to erect an anti-InBev Facebook group after this, but let’s see what Leffe Royale Cascade IPA has in store first.

25/04/2015 @ ZBF shared by Dutch guys at our table, next time share something decent please. with tderoeck, 77ships, PriorL and kraddel. Clear pale blonde, no head. Fruitjuice with a bit hopextracts. Reminds me of the Jupiler force things. They better sell it like that, Someone might like it.

Sampled @ ZBF 2015. Very pale, clear golden. Nose is nasty chemicals, thin chemical, fizzy,… Taste is just very watery chemical, nondescript, sweet, thin, watery, very boring,… I am not even sure what fruit this is supposed to be, grapes? I can only taste seeteners. (Thx! for sharing people!)

Süßlich malziger Antrunk hell, kaum herb, zu zuckrig. Künstlich wirkend. Nicht besonders. 10/6/6/7//6