6.5

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

New Clocher beer, described as a Church session IPA (because, like Heilig Hart in Flanders, this brewery is apparently installed in a church building) and hopped with Sabro; dedicated to the reopening of the catering businesses and pubs after the Covid-19 lockdown of the past autumn and winter. Snow white, cobweb-lacing, large-bubbled, very irregularly shaped head on a hazy golden blonde beer with peachy to ochre tinge, showing disparate sparkling. Aroma of old dried orange peel, jute bags, potato peel, straw bale, sweet turnip, old brioche bread, dried apple peel, clove. Fruity onset in a cleanish way, and nowhere sweet, some unripe peach and green banana, touch of Granny Smith apple, fizzily carbonated but not too harshly so; this carbonation adds freshness and liveliness to a white-bready pale malty middle with rusk-like edges, ending in a weedy, grassy hoppiness with moderate bitterness and medium duration. Clear clove-like phenolic notes and some yeast breadiness play a prominent role in the finishing stage as well, almost as much so as the hops, which fail to provide the desirable New World aromatics - let alone the tropical or coconut-like impressions associated with Sabro. At 4,5% ABV, I would say this is a bit strong for an ISA - while a meagre 12 IBU seems way too low for anything IPA-like as well. All these things taken together, I must once again conclude that the average Belgian brewer, 'artisanal' or not, still has no clue as to what 'new' IPA is about; this is a Walloon blonde and quite a typical one even, so apart from - failed - brewer's intent, there is literally nothing IPA about this beer. Only enjoyable if you can simply and completely ignore this term - then you will have a quenching, 'green' and weedy, nicely bittering summer blonde, Belgian style. I will rate it as such, but still deduct a point for promising a session IPA and being unable to deliver one.