Bouteille 33cl à friture Steve, métro Pannenhuis. BB 07/11/2024.
Dorée/pâle, léger crémeux blanc bien tenace.
IPA belge bien ficelée avec une pléthore de houblons nobles - caractère belge avec un plaisant fini malté qui apporte une belle base de grains.
Frais herbacé, oscillant un peu sur le mentholé - robuste sur l'apport des agrumes.
Sympa avec une bonne frite chez Steve.

33cl bottle. A clear deep golden beer with a big good lasting white to off-white head. Aroma of typical belgian yeast, some peach, herbal hops, spices. Taste of spicy and herbal bitter hops, intense malty, ripe peach, some belgian yeast, ripe red fruits, some spicy and metallic bitter hops.

Bière bue à Ostende au bar 'et alors je m'en fous'. Pas de notes d'agrumes mais une amertume bien présente, pas mauvaise.

Bottle, 4.4%. Bready aroma. Hazy golden colour. Very big stable white head. The flavour is fruity and slightly yeasty. Grassy hoppiness. Very good mouthfeel considering the ABV. Yeasty and caramelly finish.

Bottle. Pours clear golden with robust, stable off-white head. Clear aroma of fruit and malt, with hoppy and estery touches. Bitter, hoppy flavour with grassy notes and touches of yeast, flowers and fruit. Bitter and estry aftertaste with acidic hints. Reasonable, if a little watery.

3/I/21 - 33cl bottle from Geers (Oostakker), shared @ home, BB: VI/2022 (2021-11)

Pretty cloudy gold orange beer, big creamy solid rocky off-white head, very stable, adhesive, leaving a nice lacing in the glass. Aroma: floral, very yeasty, spicy, bit malty, sweet touch. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: malty start, very soapy, malty, grains, hay, nice bitterness, spicy. Aftertaste: grains, very malty, hay, cow fodder, meh, by no means is this an IPA.

The second Vandekelder beer, a brand located in Brussels but commissioning their beers from BeerSelect, situated in Ghent some five kilometers from where I live... Very thick and foamy, clearly hops-enhanced, egg-white, pillowy, tightly cobweb-lacing head, slowly collapsing over a misty peach blonde beer with pale orangey tinge. Somewhat musty aroma of old rusk, dried field flowers, cotton cloth and even worn-out polyester fiber, dried apple peel, unripe apricot, old bread crust, old dried lemon peel, brown soap, old potatoes, cranesbill leaf, nutmeg, vague background note of meaty 4-vinyl-guaiacol. Fruity onset, restrained in sweetness with hints of unripe peach, dried apricot and apple peel, sharp and stinging, very minerally carbonation; bit soapy, lean mouthfeel. Rusk- and bread crust-like maltiness with a peanutty edge, feeling a bit 'old' and dusty, bittered by grassy, leafy hops that last for quite a while and offer some hay- and wild flower-like aromas retronasally; a tad rooty in the end, alongside bready yeastiness and that 4-vinyl-guaiacol (clove and cooked leftover 'soup' meat) returning in the background. Like the Chantecler IPA I had from Wallonia's Goupil earlier this evening, there is little IPA to this beer, at least not in the postmodern, 'American' but now actually global, sense of the word; feels much more like a hoppy saison, in its dryness, yeasty spiciness and bitterness. I am certain that this will be a disappointment to consumers that expect a true IPA - something only very progressive, I would almost say 'anti-Belgian-tradition' microbrewers in this country seem to master so far. Why not throw in a good dose of New World hops? You will still have a very 'Belgian' IPA then, but at least the IPA claim will be more convincing...