6.6

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

One of the first beers of this brand new microbrewery in Ottignies, with a mousy, medium thick, pale yellowish off-white, irregularly lacing and slowly opening head on an immediately deeply misty, reddish chestnut brown beer with ruddy, 'dirty' amberish hue and fine strings of sparkling rising up from the bottom. Aroma of soggy brown bread, cooked chestnuts, caramel candy, dough, dusty earth, honey, clay, candied figs, fried red apples, ripe banana, coriander seed, old dried orange peel, strong spicy phenols reminiscent of cloves and even a dash of eucalyptus, a tad medicinal. Sweetish onset, pronounced fruity esters (some banana, but also strong red apple, peach and nectarine impressions), sourish undertone reinforced by very active, if not too strongly numbing, sparkly carbonation, soft and fluffy body; very bready and sweet-caramelly middle, residual honeyish sugars, retronasal spicy effects (clove, nutmeg, touch eucalyptus), ending with a lot of very bready yeastiness, lingering malt and sugary sweetness and a quite firm, earthy, leafy, medium long hop bitterness countering most of the sweetness; the spicy effects from both added spices (curaçao very likely being one of them) and phenols linger for quite a while. Typical somewhat 'dirty', very spicy, small-scale Walloon profile, sweet and malty enough to qualify as a dubbel, but an undetermined old school Belgian spice al all the same. Correct and enjoyable, though I personally prefer my traditionally stylized Belgian ales less edgy on the spices, the spice rack has been used a bit too enthusiastic here to my personal liking.