Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5

The second commercialized Coucke beer, after a witbier; made by a hobby brewer who lives in an old mansion in the village of Sint-Gillis-Waas, where once a local brewery was accomodated. Like the first one, this regular blonde is brewed commercially at Paenhuys in nearby Nieuwkerken-Waas. Bottle from Fontana. Thickly and continuously membrane-lacing, egg-white, creamy, dense, regular and closed, very stable head over an immediately hazy deep ochre-hued straw-golden beer, deeper apricot blonde and equally misty with sediment. Aroma of ripe banana, chewing gum, strong soapy coriander seed, baking soda, white bread dough, camomile tea, half-ripe pear, pumice, cloves, old ginger powder, dried and 'faded' orange peel, powder sugar, soaking wet white paper. Fruity, crisp onset, sweetish with a ton of banana ester (isoamylacetate) with very bubblegummy effect, notes of green apple, pear and unripe nectarine, strong and rather harsh, stinging (over)carbonation with souring and very minerally effect; rounded, soapy mouthfeel impaired by this extreme carbonation. Soggy white bread basis with lingering honeyish white candi syrup sweetness and banana ester, soaked in a very strong dosage of soapy and spicy coriander seed, seizing power over the finish, where a grassy hop bitterish accent appears alongside soggy pale malt sweetishness, outspoken phenolic spiciness and strongly lingering banana ester. No true off-flavours here, but all the clichés typifying your standard Belgian blonde are there: an overdose of coriander and banana ester, hugely overcarbonated and sadly uninspired. As cliché as it gets, but admittedly there is even worse in this particular, still highly overexposed Belgian segment. I can, however, see a beer like this gaining local success commercially speaking, as it certainly ticks all the boxes when it comes to the simplicity and 'easiness' the average Belgian beer drinker expects.