La Réserve LAB Venus Triple
Corniche Belgium International in Brussel / Bruxelles / Brussels, Brussels Capital Region, Belgium 🇧🇪
Brewed at/by: Brouwerij Anders!Belgian Style - Tripel Regular
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Score
6.48
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La Réserve LAB est la gamme expérimentale de La Réserve, les bières artisanales belges. L'objectif est de créer de nouveaux types de bières et d'expérimenter de nouvelles techniques et de nouveaux ingrédients.
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Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5
My first beer from this young microbrewery - one of many - in the Belgian capital, a tripel spiced with coriander (surprise, surprise) and the far less obvious 'verbena', which I assume in this case refers to lemon verbena (Aloysia citrodora, a South American plant species often found in horticulture). Thick and very mousy, egg-white, tightly cobweb-lacing, audibly crackling head on a lightly hazed, 'metallic' pale orange-golden beer with some disparate strings of sparkling here and there, turning a bit more misty with sediment but remaining translucent. Aroma of indeed ground coriander seed and a lot of it, dried apricot, straw, old bread crust, vague background DMS (cooked green cabbage or, in this case, even spoiled vegetable soup) fortunately not pushing itself to the foreground too much, herbal tea-ish note which I assume subtly represents the lemon verbena, ripe banana, raw parsnip, glazed carrots, 'oude jenever', pear, hints of honey, iron, granite rocks or some other kind of minerality, dry earth. Spritzy, fruity, sweetish onset, lots of minerally and tingling carbonation, impressions of pear, red apple, banana and pineapple, some residual sweetness lingering over a slick, smooth-edged cereally maltiness with caramelly edges; growing coriander seed presence in the finish but luckily not going into complete overdrive (contrary to what I feared) yet still very clearly adding its typical soapy spiciness, although the lemon verbena indeed manages to balance it with its perfumey, citrusy 'fraîcheur', which does not last long. Perfumey soapiness, the combination of both coriander and lemon verbena, rises up retronasally, while a leafy hop bitterness is established and a warming, 'jenever'-ish alcohol glow shows up. A slick glue- and soap-like effect remains in the end, bittered by the hops and sweetened by the alcohol on the one hand and residual sugars on the other hand. Sweet, cleanish tripel with a slight perfumey twist to it - luckily not too perfumey, because that would have landed this beer well below 3/5 for me. They did manage to keep the herbalness, spiciness and soapiness relatively decent, but it does feel like the umpteenth overly 'commercial' sweet tripel even with the rather unusual herb added to it - don't we have an overpopulation of those already in this country? Redundant at best, another attempt at trying to be modern with an English sounding name, glossy label and longneck bottle, while miserably failing at understanding the true spirit of the global craft beer movement. It is a good thing that old Brussels has spawned a lot of these urban nouvelle vague brewing initiatives in the last years - guided by Senne and BBP - but the chaff needs to be separated from the wheat...
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
33cl bottle from Cora in Brussels. F: medium, white, quick gone. C: pale gold, hazy. A: malty, mellow fruity, bit bready, toast, hay. T: full malty base, fruity, peach, bit herbal, mint touch, bit honey, medium carbonation, ok, not bad, enjoyed.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 5.5 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Fast gone white head over nearly clear golden beer. Roasted, bit "putteke", rind/crust from runny cheese, toasted malts. Toasted, bit hay-ish, spicy malts. More fruity than most tripels, some alcoholsweetness. Lightly burning MF, some light alcoholimpression that pushes the sweetness into the aftertaste. Not very attenuated, I would guess, very mild carbonation. All in all not that bad, just not very exciting. Thanks to Stef!