5.8

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5

The first beer by this new beer company, devoted to the region of Sars-la-Buissière; they brew this beer at Brootcoorens apparently, but since its creation and commercialisation is their core business and they seem to do most of the work in production themselves, I thought it reasonable to add them as a separate (commissioner) brewery entry, contrary to many other companies that have been entered lately but which seem less deserving of brewery status on this site. La Sacrilège comes from a green 37.5 cl ‘geuze’ bottle with crown cap and produces a medium thick, off-white, moussy, fairly stable but eventually opening head and lightly hazy orangey peach blonde robe with lively sparkling throughout, turning misty with sediment. Aroma clearly reveals that something went wrong: stinking of infection, I get impressions of rotting tomatoes, spoiled carrot soup, old bread, sulfuric melting rubbery notes, paprika powder, cooked apple, dry earth, old coriander seed. Fruity, estery onset, green banana, pineapple and pear, sweetish and sourish with fizzy carbonation; smooth bread-crusty and very lightly caramelly malt base with soapy coriander thrown in as well as a lot of unfermented sugars, the combination of which with earthy yeast leads to an impression of cold carrot soup in the end, only lightly bittered by a floral, bit leafy hoppiness, lots of spicy phenols and followed by an afterglow of warming, ‘jenever’-ish alcohol which could have been better hidden. Typical Walloon ‘ambrée’ in terms of style, malty and ‘dirty’ estery – so far, no problem for me, but alas this bottle is also infected and the alcohol is too badly hidden. Flawed and not too pleasant, but the intention is there and I might give this another chance if I ever encounter it again.