One of three new abbey beers created for the old Boudelo monastery in Klein-Sinaai, a small village near Stekene in ‘my’ Waasland region, from the brand new kettles of Musketeers in nearby Sint-Gillis-Waas. Thick and pillowy, plaster-lacing, snow white, stable head on a misty yellow blonde beer with olive-greenish tinge and lively sparkling. Aroma initially a bit lightstruck (cat pee) in spite of the beer coming from a brown bottle, but once this fades, I get impressions of withering grass, old bread, oxidized green apple slices, stewing ‘courgette’, green tree leaves, freshly cut garden weeds, cucumber peel, hints of gypsum and white pepper. Crisp but dryish onset, ‘green-fruity’ with notes of oxidized Granny Smith apple and Conference pear, green banana – remaining relatively low in sweetness, with minerally, active carbonation and supple mouthfeel. White-bready, cereally, dryish malts, slender, eventually bittered by a very grassy, withering-flowery hoppiness, becoming a tad peppery in the end and lasting medium long. Some vague spicy phenols (clove) show up as well. Decent enough as an ordinary blonde abbey beer in ultra-Belgian vein, with a bit more hop bitterness and less sweetness than I am used to from this overexposed style; that said, it dawns on me that Musketeers, having erected their own state of the art brewery now after so many years of being a successful ‘bierfirma’, have apparently chosen for the commercially ‘safe’ route now, as this (as well as most of their other recent beers) is far removed from the Troubadour Magma Special Editions experimenting with hops and yeast strains that made them so interesting not too many years ago. Too bad: this country needs the boldness and creativity Musketeers showed back then, rather than yet another set of boring, standard abbey ales...

Dark yellow coloeur with lasting head. Lighlt spicy and quite a lot of malt sweetness. Has a pleasant bitter twist compared to others in the common Belgian Blond style.