6.8

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

The amber version in this new series of pseudo-abbey beers, completing the triangle of blonde-brune-ambrée. Medium thick, irregularly lacing, egg-white head, quickly showing gaps in the middle here and there but well retaining on the edge, hazy deep orangey amber robe, more densely cloudy and deeply amber with sediment added. Aroma of unripe peach, roasted peanuts, warm toast, banana and even some bubblegum, honey, earthy cooked carrot, freshly grated ginger, red apple peel, pear, jute, orange peel, damp straw, dried garden weeds, gin, cake, white pepper, cloves, hard cheese, rainwater somewhere but no off-flavours - not even the dreaded DMS, though some very faint cooked green vegetable does appear in the very end and with highly concentrated sniffing. Spritzy and fruity onset, banana ester with a light nod at bubblegum, peach, pineapple and pear sweetness with a dash of dim sourishness, strongly minerally carbonation but not overcarbonated, standard for a Wallonian ambrée and souring a bit; supple, smooth mouthfeel, lightly soapy. Rounded, lean malt body, cereally in its core but adorned with caramelly and nutty accents, a bit bready too with a very light toasted edge, functioning as a firm background for ongoing esters and onsetting phenols, but generally remaining relatively clean for this style. Finishes dryish, with floral and lightly ’rooty’, leafy hop bitterishness, providing balance against the sweetening banana ester and caramelly malts; just a tiny bit resinous in the end even, with an afterglow of mildly warming, young ’jenever’-ish alcohol and some earthy yeastiness especially after adding the sediment. Nothing spectacular conceptually, as expected: this is just your average strong Belgian amber ale, complete with banana ester and spicy phenols, but a bit more ’clean’ than I am used to from especially the Wallonian ambrée ’substyle’. No errors of off-flavours, no gushing, no DMS or any other serious flaws: this is technically well made, adequately hopped and well-balanced, in all notably better executed than the blonde and the brune in this series - so by itself a perfectly decent ale. Enjoyable in a very classic, 20th-century Belgian way, nothing more, nothing less.