7

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

First beer from a brand new (May of this year) brewpub in Lubbeek, an initiative of Steven Bollion and Jan Haegemans, familiar names in the Belgian beer world, as they were and still are also the guys behind the Malterfakker brand; Bollion is the former landlord of Leuven’s reputed M Café, while Haegemans is an experienced homebrewer. Tasted their Brouwateljee tripel from tap at Diesters Bierfestival 2019. Egg-white, intricately cobweb-lacing, mousy, irregularly edged but stable head, misty warm peach blonde robe with orangey tinge. Aroma of ripe peaches, dried orange flesh, ripe banana, hint of mango juice even, gin, rainwater, camomile, bread crumbs, honey, cooked parsnip, wet white pepper, dry earth, old ginger powder. Sweetish onset, crisp and fruity hinting at peach, pineapple and some banana with a certain orange ‘fraîcheur’ to it as well, fizzy minerally carb, supple and smooth, bready malt middle with a thin caramelly edge; some honeyish residual sugars linger over this, but the initial sweetness is suddenly countered by a long-stretching, wormwoody, quinine- and bitter citrus peel-like hoppiness, a drying, rooty, spicy bitterness that lingers for a long time. The malt sweetness does peep through in the end, along with a mildly earthy yeast note and an afterglow of warming, gin-like alcohol. Very confidentally hopped, this one clearly has the guts to steer away from the vast lake of overly sweet tripels populating the Belgian beer landscape, even if it begins like any sweet, fruity tripel. Even if this is still a very Belgian tripel, there is a modern, hop forward twist to it which enlightens this classic tripel character. Very good within its style, as far as I am concerned.