15/VIII/20 - 75cl bottle, 3.5% version @ Belgian Beer Geek Gathering Summer 2020, BB: n/a (2020-775) Thanks to Erwin for sharing the bottle!

Little cloudy reddish brown beer, small creamy beige head, little stable, bit adhesive. Aroma: bit yeasty, nice roast, malty, pretty metallic, funky, jam, some acidic impression. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: malty, caramel, some banana, bit of chocolate. Aftertaste: soft acidity, dried fruits, caramel notes, banana, decent one!

This or last month's Maîtresse by Gruut - a series of monthly beers of which, to my knowledge, no full list is available, so something of a ticker's nightmare... This one was on tap at Gruut during Gentse Feesten and presented as a 'sour stout'. Mousy, irregular, medium thick, frothy, pale greyish beige head, dark chocolate brown robe, blackish in general appearance but still translucent, with mahogany hue. Aroma of old coffee filters, hard caramel candy, dried figs, soap, bubblegum, walnuts, tea, medlar, plaster, blackberries, coffee cream, old raisins, nutmeg. Fruity onset, fig, medlar, banana and peach notes, bit bubblegummy, sweetish with only a very light streak of sourishness, somewhat blackberry-like; medium carb, rounded, soapy mouthfeel (typical Gruut soapiness no doubt related to their use of spices to replace hops, at least allegedly); very caramelly malt body, bit toasty and very nutty, with that very thin sourish accent lingering in the end, amidst a herbal spiciness that offers only soft bitterness. Somewhat more bitterness comes from the malts, while the lactic sourish element adds more fruitiness than actual sourness. I was expecting a roasty version of 'oud bruin,' as sour stouts tend to be, but this is neither really sour nor really a stout - if tasted without foreknowledge, I would have identified it as an old school English brown porter as interpreted with Belgian yeastiness, or something like that. Not bad, but Gruut still hasn't fully convinced me, I'm afraid.