Sehr süßer und alkoholischer Start. Geringe Bitterkeit, getreidig, mittellanger Abgang. 7/6/7/6/7/6

Super strong tripel by Het Nest, the base beer in this case, used for a number of barrel aged variants. Thick, eggshell-white, moussy head thinning and opening, leaving shreds of foam over a misty deep golden beer with ‘metallic’ pale orangey tinge. Aroma of candy apple, wodka and even methylated spirits, sugared bubblegum, banana, melting powder sugar, starch, gin, juniper berries, honey and phenolic notes of peppermint and even tooth paste lurking in the background. Very sweet, sugary onset, tooth-cloying in fact, with fruity notes of cooked pear and ripe banana, medium carbonated with rounded, slick body – but clearly thinned by alcohol. Sleek cereally maltiness under a blanket of residual ‘white’ sugariness, until suddenly a severe, quinine-like, very rooty and long-lasting bitterness takes over, very strongly amplified by a huge gin-like booziness warming the back of the mouth, as expected; this ‘armwrestling’ contest of extreme sugariness, extreme bitterness and extreme booziness goes on for a while, but leaves no room for finesse at all. This is about the crudest top-fermenting beer I ever had – I can only compare its crudeness, ‘barrenness’ and booziness with some of the worst malt liquors and Euro strong lagers I had in the past, but without the metallic and plastic-like ‘industrialness’ of those. This is almost a parody of the Belgian ‘sweet and boozy tripel’ stereotype – an unforgiving magnification seeking to roll its muscles and impress, but dramatically lacking in good taste, refinement and complexity. A complete abomination in my view, even the barrel aged versions of this beer are (a bit) less crude, strangely…