75cl bottle from Sandersput, Ninove; shared with mom & dad. Hazy golden, big, foamy, off-white head. Aroma of vanilla, wood, mandarin, unripe yellow plum, pear, perfume, bread dough ready to be baked, 'blossom water'. Taste has sweetish pear & plum, sourish mandarin flesh over soft bready, doughy maltiness with spicy & perfumey notes. Floral hoppy finish offering yellow fruits, citrus, spices and vanilla oak, and a warming dash of gin-like alcohol. Medium body, oily texture, average carbonation. Now this is the kind of newish Tripel that you want to encounter. Refined and tasty.

Very good, just off-white head, stable over clear coppery, lively carbonated beer. Boozy nose, alcohol-drenched wood, orangepeel, orangeliqueur, sweet and lightly coloured malts. Sweet-ish, also because of the high alcohol content. Again orangepeel/orangeliqueur. Bit sticky feel, despite the lively carbonation alleviating. Tad too boozy in character and hence too sweet for me. It gives an impression as if alcohol was infused. Not a beer that induces to have another one, to put it mildly. Thanks to Stef!

Special edition of De Ryck’s silent classic Arend Tripel, flavoured with oak chips, in honour of the 135th anniversary of the brewery; was sold together with a liquor distilled from the same beer in a luxury pack. Thanks to Meeki Meekio for sharing, cheers! Tightly moussy, very stable, egg-white head on a misty peach blonde beer with ‘metallic’ orange hue. Aroma of baked banana, indeed vanilla-scenting oak wood (more so than I was expecting – oak chips have apparently been used very generously), hard caramel, almond, dry biscuit, brandy, fried potato, bread pulp, banana peel, clove. Cleanishly fruity onset, hints of pear, peach and banana, fizzily carbonated with moderately full, slick mouthfeel; biscuity, very lightly caramelled and bread-crusty maltiness makes up the core of this beer, enriched with some indeed only softly tannic but unmistakably vanilla-scenting woodiness, gentle spicy notes of clove and allspice, soft floral hops and warming, brandy-like alcohol. Dried fruit and spicy yeast linger. Quite a noble beer, well-‘wooded’ in spite of the fact that no barrel ageing was applied – in that sense an exercise in refinement, which a brewery of 135 years old should indeed be capable of. Glad I tried this one.

2/I/22 - 75cl bottle from Geers (Oostakker), shared @ my parent’s place, BBE: 2023, Lotnr L1 (2022-3)

Clear gold blond beer, small creamy white head, bit stable, bit adhesive. Aroma: quite yeasty, lots of ripe banana, fruity. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: yeasty, pretty bitter, some tannins, bit of vanilla, sweet touch, bit malty, yeasty. Aftertaste: banana peel, little bitter, yeast, bit spicy, hint of coriander, decent, but a bit too yeasty.