Super 8 Export

F: average, size, white. C: gold, clear. A: malt, grainy, bread, industrial, hint of caramel. T: malt, grainy, corn, industrial, watery, herbal, light to medium body, medium carbonation, nothing worth to try here, 33cl bottle from Delhaize Chazal @ Schaerbeek in Brussels.

10/12/2016 - 33cl bottle @Sporthal De Pinte Clear yellow with small white head. Nose is sweet malty. Taste is sweet malty, watery.

Draught @ ’t Opkikkertje, Brugge. Pale blonde with a small head and a carbonation. A light tasting lager, but with some character to it.

Classic Belgian ’export’, i.e. pale standard lager bottled in 33 cl (’trappist’) bottles but at usually slightly lower ABV - this is about as old-fashioned as it gets, and that goes for the label as well, which is probably still roughly the same as many a decade ago. Had this in a pub in Ghent (Bal Infernal) fifteen-odd years ago but seems to have been relaunched recently, at 4.8% ABV instead of the original 4.7% ABV. Rerating now from such a new bottle, bought at a Delhaize supermarket. Medium sized, snow white, lightly ’papery’ lacing, relatively stable head, slowly showing gaps; cristal clear, pure golden blonde colour with slightly greenish hue, pierced by strings of fierce sparkling. Aroma of slowly stewed white cabbage, old vegetable soup, damp straw, plastic, mineral water, soggy birdseed, hint of iron. Spritzy onset due to strong, minerally, souring carbonation but this is to be expected from the style and quickly calms down, no esters, neutral till a somewhat soapy, bit sourish graininess shows up, becoming a tad more ’rounded’ in the middle but remaining very straightforward; finish adds a plastic-like effect but fortunately also more grassy hop bitterishness than usual in an industrial pale lager; some corn flower-like ’industrial breadiness’ in the end as well, along with a strangely glueish kind of mouthfeel - reminiscent of the taste and feel of just having old-fashionedly licked an envelope in order to close it. The slightly-above-average hop bitter touch and this very light and thin breadiness place this a bit above the ’median’ standard lager for me, but the plastic- and cooked vegetable-like accents have the opposite effect and the soapy, almost flypaper-like aspect doesn’t help either, so in all, this is just as bad as I remember. Completely out of time and therefore completely redundant in the 21st century. Haacht will never get it.

[Courtesy of Kogymo] [33 cl. bottle split by 2][@ Papa Jos][Poured into small wine snifters] The waitress gave both of us free Export glasses to take home which was cool. The glass is way cooler than the beer (very solid & looks a bit like a Dupont shaker). The beer itself poured a clear golden with a small chemical head. Nose smelled of synthetic corn, skunk, cheap pale malts, a bit watery. Tasted grainy and soapy, nasty corn, touch chemical, watery & artificial, faint bitter herbs. A bad pale lager by a brewery that makes one of the worst pale lagers in Belgium in my opinion. Others appeared to enjoy this beer.

Pale yellow colour, white foam. Medium carbonation. Thin body. Watery beer. Aroma of sweet malts and very light bitter aftertaste.