5.9

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 5.5

The basic beer by Saint-Clausienne, a Belgian blonde used as a starting point for several spiced and herbed derivatives; the beer company is situated in the hills of Saint-Nicolas in the province of Liège and was set up by a bio engineer called Maurizio Passanisi. Commercial quantities are executed at Grain d'Orge. This one showed a regularly shaped, snow white, creamy, stable head and misty, deep amberish orange blonde robe with lively sparkling. Aroma of apple peel, very strong 'pipe' iron (confirmed by the 'hand test'), white bread slices, unripe banana, dried apricot, coriander seed, green pear, some rusty oxidation. Fruity onset but restrained in esteriness, not too sweet either, hinting at unripe pear, green banana and some apricot but nearly 'destroyed' by - at least initially - very, very sharp, numbing overcarbonation, roughening an otherwise slick mouthfeel. Cereally, very thinly peanutty malt base, utterly metallic as expected based on the nose, with a dusty coriander seed spiciness in the end superseded by 'rusty' oxidation; bready yeasty and florally hoppy effects too, but malt sweetishness prevails. Too old a bottle, alas, but the iron effect - used as a head stabilizer - was what bothered me most here. Not a great success, and not very inviting to search for the other, spiced versions.