Very dense, bubbly, persistent lightly yellowish head over fully hazy, very carbonated pale yellow beer. Spicy, chamomille, garden herbs & weeds, hints at white candi sugar. Again spicy, herbal flavour. Dry (white candi), and vegetable flavours. Feels very carbonated, quite slick and creamy texture. Medium bodied. Oh, certainly not bad, but you won't get seesawing over it. IMHO more saison than Kölsch.

Hazy pale blond colour with lasting lacy head. Mentioned here as a Kolsch but has a Saison-esque flavour profile. A little malty and wheaty with a like spicy yeast element. Very clean though.

Ghent harbours many client brewers these days and one of them is De 6 Helmen, located in an old neighbourhood called Brugse Poort, which is also the birthplace of local singer Kurt Burgelman, known for his band 'Biezebaaze' (Ghent dialect for 'swing'). This beer honours the band, so I guess it can be - kind of - categorized under that bunch of beers made for and in collaboration with rock bands (see the beers made for AC/DC, Metallica, Motörhead and so on)... As for style: it is apparently intended as a Kölsch, so a top-fermented golden ale of session strength undergoing a long cold storage as is custom in Cologne; this makes it, to my knowledge at least, the second one in Ghent, as Dok Brewing Company already made one a couple of years ago. This Biezebaaze, however, differs from Dok's fully traditional interpretation - and from the actual Kölsch beers from Germany - in making use of dry-hopping, lending it an Anglo-Saxon twist. Thick, frothy, egg-white, very mousy and 'closed', stable head leaving patches of plastery lacing on the wall of the glass, topping an initially clear, pale straw blonde beer with somewhat greenish tinge and fierce sparkling, becoming lightly hazed with sediment. Aroma of starfruit, halfripe banana, drying white bread, withering grass, vague hint at guava, dried lemon zest, ripe cucumber, field flowers, hints of soap, chalk and lemonbalm. Clean, very restrainedly fruity onset (as, indeed, in a Kölsch), green banana and starfruit with a dash of Granny Smith apple, lively carbonation though nowhere harshly stinging; lots of minerality accompanying a supple, smooth cereally malt body with a light soft-bready edge and a vague underlying sourish touch, green-fruity aspects lingering until a floral hop character appears, offering retronasal impressions of field flowers (sweetclover), some vague lime blossom and some equally vague lychee, as well as a soft, gentle, grassy end bitterness. The 'purity' of pale malt and minerally brewing water remains intact, though, so in that sense I think the Kölsch intentions (or 'Gölsch', Ghentish Kölsch, as the brewer calls it) are well achieved. If Dok's interpretation came close to the cleaner, drier side of Kölsch (think e.g. Dom Kölsch), then this one leans more to the softer, 'sweeter' side (think e.g. Früh Kölsch). The dry-hopping does add an interesting fruity accent but does not completely ruin the Kölsch idea, contrary to what I was fearing - so in all, very well made, I'd happily drink several of these, perhaps ending up singing "Loetsebollekezoetse", the only Biezebaaze song I can think of right now...

10/VI/21 - 33cl bottle from Geers (Oostakker), shared with my next-door neighbour @ home, BB: 6/IV/22 (2021-482)

Clear pale blond to yellow beer, big creamy white head, little stable, adhesive, leaving a nice lacing in the glass. Aroma: rather fruity, apples and pears, a bit chemical, sourish impression. MF: lively carbon, medium body. Taste: little bitter, chemical, fruity, very yeasty, malty. Aftertaste: yeasty, bit sourish, lemony, green apples, sweet touch, malty, grains, caramel.