6.4

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

New beer from Beveren, where microbreweries and 'bierfirma's' alike are united under the Bier Verenigt association; this one is the result of a collaboration between a wine merchant there (Tim Verwilghen) and Pieter De Bock (from the De Bock 'bierfirma' also in Beveren-Waas). Presented as an acacia honey beer, inspired by the construction of a new flower meadow on the grounds of Cortewalle. The place where this beer is actually brewed (Anders! in Limburg) is mentioned neither on the bottle nor on the website, so once again this is a hobby project (or indeed a 'bierfirma' at best) posing as an actual brewery - why do people keep doing that? Just be honest about where you have your beer brewed, how difficult can it be, damn it! Anyway: yellowish egg-white, thick, frothy, irregularly but very tightly lacing, stable head on a slightly misty, somewhat salmon pinkish-tinged pale orange blonde beer with lively sparkling, turning a tad deeper orange and more equally misty with sediment, but remaining vivid and radiant in general looks. Aroma of fresh mandarin, indeed industrial liquid honey, ripe banana, iron pipes, dried camomile flowers, freshly cut red apples, orange juice from a can, dry powder sugar, faint hints of white pepper, chalk and caramel. Sweet onset, spritzy carbonation with minerally effects, impressions of banana, ripe peach, apple and some orange, but rather cleanish; white sugariness cloys a bit to the teeth, while a supple, lean, smooth-edged white-bready and thinly caramelly maltiness fills the middle, accompanied by a very clear metallic effect. Indeed honey-like sweetness retronasally - but in a rather artificial, straightforward, strangely sweet way, far removed from the lovely, delicate and 'genuine' flowery and herbal aromas fermented honey can bring (without sweetness - honey ferments very easily). A mild floral bitterness shows up in the end, but comes from hops alone and has nothing to do with the honey. Ends sweet with this slight hop bitterness hidden within, with a white sugariness and banana and apple aspects lingering. Very clean, easy and commercially oriented Belgian honey beer in the vein of Lefêbvre's evergeen Barbãr, sweet and straightforward and clearly aimed at the masses - but in that respect, technically well done. Honey, however, can do so much more in a beer, and the sweetness seems artificial and sugary here. 'Anders' quality alright, but uninspired - another one trying to commercially ride the wave of the whole present-day beer hype.