[backlog] 11-08-15 / bottle at Citadel Namur in Belgium. Strong malt, some caramel, yeast notes. I started rating my beers with Untappd and a few basic notes. Now I want to rate them on ratebeer. So my rating sometimes lack some information. Just ignore it, it is for my personal statistics. Untappd-Rating 2.75/5

Golden color with big head. Spicy floral perfumy hops, spicy yeasts, quite peppery. Dry and spicy, typical belgian. High carbonation.

Dorada clara miel. Dos dedos de espuma ligera y efervescente que desaparece rápido. Aroma diferente, a vino tinto. Sabor inicialmente dulce y malteado, que luego marca mas los aspectos florales y evoluciona en amargor, manteniendo el tono de vino del aroma. Extraña.

Uklar lys brun med høyt hvitt skum. Lukter malt og korn. Søt karamell og alkohol. Kort lett bitter avslutning.

Draught at le Lion de Belfort, 4/22/15
Light marigold body is heavily carbonated, mostly clear and has a large white head that slowly recedes to cover.
Peppery hop notes in the nose are quickly supplanted by tropical fruits (yeast) and a healthy dose of sugar (vanilla, consdensed milk, honey). There’s an odd pineapple note about the aroma that I guess is just some yeast ester. Don’t love it, as it got a sweet/sour edge to it that’s a bit off-putting. Alcohol is under control, however, with no DMS/diacetyl. Say what you will about industrial French beers (they are terrible) but they rarely have the diacetyl/acetlydehyde/DMS problems that are so rampant in their American counterparts (granted my sample size is very small to be making such a claim. And yes, I realize this is technically brewed in Belgium).
Flavor is, thankfully, better than the aroma. Hop bitterness up front would be better complemented by actual hop flavor, but it’s just the sparse peppery/dry hay-like hop flavor that is quickly lost amidst the yeast esters (light banana, pineapple, lemon) and sweet malts (sweet dough, vanilla, rich honey). It’s not that it’s obnoxiously sweet; the alcohol, hop bitterness and brisk carbonation helping with that. It’s just that the sweetness is, as with seemingly all of these Franco-Belgique beers is very saccharine-like, with a waxiness and almost powdered sugar-like note. It’s just not pure malt flavor. Anyways, the texture, aside from the strong carbonation is slick and borderline syrupy by the end. Quite fatiguing.

Licht troebel geel bier met heel veel schuim wat echter snel inzakt. Smaak is licht bitter en fruitig, echter vrij waterig. Smaak blijft redelijk lang hangen.