6.1

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6.5 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6

75cl bottle from Carrefour as 1128 Brut Bier. Misty yellow pour with a short-lived white head. Gentle floral nose, some nelson sauvin hop notes. Certainly quite dry as befits the Brut tag. Tastes a little empty on the palate though welcome distant, slightly faint, Nelson Sauvin notes waft through. Never understood the appeal of brut beers and this does little to sway me.

6.6

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 6.5 | Flavor - 6.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 6.5

75 cl bottle, labeles as the brand 1128 Grimbergen, Brut Bier as what seems to be the marketing for the 75 cl's.
Pours a hazed strawyellow light blonde. Medium to medium small (especially for a brut beer) white head. Scent is strong on the BE yeast (banana) and malt, yet with a slightly more hopped than average base perhaps. Taste is dry and sharp, with high carbonation as it enters the palate. Nelson sauvin provides great aspect here, resemblind a grape like fruityness. Unfortunately, it doesnt work all to well for me in combo with the BE yeast (banana) , and there's also noticable amounts of orange somehow . Feels very estery. Malty base isn't lost, but truth be told the totallity of the beer is a bit of a mess slightly sweet finish, oily estery mouthfeel that doesnt greatly resemble the whole idea of being Brut in champagne / sparkling wine terms. Not a big fan, but at least the nelson was a positive idea to me. A better suited basebeer would help, though.

8.2

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8

Opalescent pale yellow colour, minimal off-white head; aroma of unripe grape, white wine, some citrusy, grainy and fruity notes; taste has the same notes with some earthy-yeasty notes; really good one

6.5

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

Fles gedeeld door Roelzie. Het is een troebel lichtgeel bier met een volle witte schuimkraag. Het heeft een aroma van gist en champagne. De smaak is fruitig, druif achtig en droog.

6.4

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

Clear golden yellow beer with a white head. Aroma of mild sweet and fruity malt, some white grapes, apples. Taste of sweet fruits, hints of apples, white grapes, some brett, moderate carbonation.

4.5

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 4 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 4

Smell-weak malt, weak hops, weak farts. Foam- thin, hops, weak sourness, weak malt. Head is medium-sized, white in color. Appearance- brewer bottle cap, simple label. Clear yellow amber in color, weak carbonation. From - snifter Taste - weak hops, citrus, weak sourness. Meh. Odd.

6.5

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6.5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5

Van tap bij Lady Nelson in Mechelen. Zuurtje, fruitig, citroen, Nelson Sauvin, wat hout, wat witte druif, licht droog. (8-7-2023).

6

Sourish, lemon, white wine, oak, woody, tannins

6.8

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8

Lichtgeel vrij helder bier met weinig schuim. Smaak is fruitig fris en vrij zoet met iets van champagne, wat druif en meloen. Aparte maar degelijke smaak. Heel geslaagd wat mij betreft

6.6

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6.5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

One of the three first beers commercialized by the new Grimbergen microbrewery, erected with money from owner Carlsberg and used as a kind of 'taste lab' under their supervision; refermented with wine yeast, which is strange, since the moniker 'brut' in Belgian context usually refers to champagne yeast (forget about any connections with brut IPA or other contemporary American 'brut' beers though - there aren't any). Thanks tderoeck for the bottle! Towering high, egg-white, foamy, regularly shaped, densely creamy, tightly plaster-like lacing head on a persistently crystal clear and therefore clearly filtered, straw blonde beer with 'metallic' golden glow and some strings of sparkling in the middle - looking almost Duvel-like. Aroma of unripe Conference pear, green apple, fresh white bread dough, pineapple, acacia honey, ripe green melon, fresh peppermint leaf, dust, white demi-sec wine, bubblegum, Pineau de Charentes, banana peel, industrial sweet cider, freshly ironed cotton cloth (pasteurization?), clove. Sweet onset, ripe red apple and ripe pear, hints of pineapple and green melon with a dash of banana, lively carbonated but not too numbing, rounded and bit glueish mouthfeel but still feeling more slender than I would expect at this ABV. Lots of residual powder-sugariness, honeyish in the end, combining with the fruitiness in an effect that more closely resembles honeydew melon than grapes; the malt part remains thin and cereally, slick and clearly 'pumped up' with white candi sugar. A slight vinous effect sets in towards the finish, in a sweet or demi-sec-like way, as if drinking a wine-based apéritif (like Pineau) especially when an afterglow of effectively Pineau-like alcohol comes into play. A light fruity-sourish effect, with some imagination connectable with sweet white grapes, runs underneath, but does not succeed in sufficiently countering the residual honeydew and even candyfloss-like sweetness that dominates this beer - and that began to bother me after a few sips already. This 'Magnum Opus' is hopefully not really this brewery's magnum opus because otherwise I do not think I will keep track of what they do - my sympathy, when it comes to non-trappist monasteries brewing on their own premises, would rather go to Braxatorium Parcensis instead, more than twenty miles further east. I do get the wine yeast idea - this beer sure has that typical sweet maltotriose flavour as a result of leftover sugars unfermentable by wine yeast - but in this form, everything has been kept very sleek and accessible, lacking in the phenols a typical wine yeast could and would produce if managed differently; I also recommend owner Carlsberg to ditch the word 'brut' in the name as this only creates wrong expectations (see many of the ratings below for that). Too sweet, one-dimensional and 'empty' for me, in spite of its considerable alcohol content; maybe I just had too many of these 'inflated' strong Belgians in my lifetime. I do understand the appeal this beer may have among Belgian beer lovers in general, though, but it is not my cup of tea.