5.4

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

Brussels ale from this new beer company, flavoured with elderblossom. Bottle with simple hangtag like their others, no label. Thin and very loosely bound, egg-white, regular head quickly settling as a thin ring; cloudy ochre-hued straw blonde robe. Aroma of indeed dry seitan- and herb cheese-like elderblossom, green tea, banana peel, soap, withering cut flowers, raw potato, parsnip, dough, old carrot soup, moldy bread and some background DMS – all but inviting, if you ask me. Restrainedly fruity onset, old apple and banana peel accents, low in sweetness with a more outspoken sourish undertone, but ‘dirty’, soft carb with subtle minerally side notes over a thin and even somewhat ‘watery’ cereally and grainy, thinly bready malt body; green vegetable notes in the finish which probably represent the elderblossom, but in a far less ‘meaty’ or even floral way as I am used to from beers flavoured with this ingredient. Ends thin, grainy, dull and watery, with a soapy elderblossom aspect lingering, but clearly insufficiently hopped. Poorly executed, could have been an elegant, gentle quencher if it had a bit more body, character and boldness.