Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 3 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 4.5

One of the many short-lived beers Le Bierodrome in Tournai has already churned out in its relatively short existence, a spiced beer named after Ho Chi Minh, who is depicted on the front label (there is no back label worth mentioning, by the way, just a small sticker). Thick and frothy, egg-white, regularly shaped, very stable head over a hazy ‘old gold’-coloured beer with orangey-peachy hue that becomes darker with sediment; lively sparkling. The aroma is what distinguishes this beer from everything else I’ve tasted so far: a pungent, bizarre and hardly inviting blend of extremely medicinal and even smoky phenols with ‘green’ herbal and botanical aromas, resulting in impressions of hospital and extremely strong band aid, eucalyptus-based cough syrup, burning plastic, cod-liver oil, unsmoked cigarette tobacco and – very pronounced – gin botanicals (juniper berry, orange peel, star anise) – all but obliterating the beer’s natural apple peel, banana, honey and white bread features. Sweet onset, banana, pineapple and pear fruitiness with a refreshing touch of orange, medium carbonation, supple mouthfeel; soft bready and cereally malt sweetishness with a honeyish and minerally edge quickly drowns in the extreme spiciness that is all around this beer, with the band aid and hospital, smoky burnt plastic and juniper-gin scents all returning retronasally in a very pushy, obnoxious and overpowering way. A floral hop bitterness manages to survive this onslaught and lasts medium long in the end. Ridiculously overspiced from actual spices (I don’t like juniper berry and other gin flavourings in beer to begin with) but, even more so, from what is probably the most extreme amount of phenolic off-flavours I have ever encountered in any beer - my girlfriend could not even take more than one sip of this super-spicy brew…