Bottle. Pours nearly clear golden with airy white head. Clear aroma of yeast and malt, with hoppy and floral touches. Bitter and citric flavour with malty and floral notes and estery and fruity touches. Bitter and malty aftertaste with citric hints. Warming alcohol presence. A nice one.

Bottle, 8.5%. Lagery aroma. Hazy golden colour. Big stable white head. The flavour is quite bitter, but has enough body and maltiness to balance. Hint of light caramel. The bitterness gets a bit much after a while. Good body and mouthfeel. A decent beer, but no need to put it in a fancy bottle.

Creamy white good mostly lasting head. Yellow colour. Moderate malty and hoppy aroma. Heavy bitter flavor. Long heavy bitter finish. Creamy palate.

Bottle. Pours a slightly hazy straw colour with a big off-white head. Aroma of wheat, pale malt and grass. The flavour has more of everything along with citrus and some alcohol. Has a slick mouth feel, medium body and a light bitterness. Malty and well balance, but a little careful aroma though.

75cl Fles van De Laat. Troebel gouden kleur, witte kraag. Fruitig, gist, hoppig, bloemig, smaakt zoals je zou verwachten, als de Tripel met wat extra klassieke hop. En dat is fijn. Lekker, enkel iets te hoog in koolzuur.

This year's Indulgence, a tribute to emperor Charles V (who was born in Ghent before he went to Mechelen, by the way) and to his imperial coin, which gave its name to the Gouden Carolus brand in a long stretch of history. From a 75 cl bottle with cork and muselet, bought at Dranken De Wilde in Zele. Thick and frothy, egg-white, stable, paper-lacing head on a misty ochre-hued 'old golden' beer with lively sparkling. Aroma strongly lightstruck (cat pee, dried hemp), wet grass, bitter honey, oxidized green apple, old cheese-flavoured crackers, bath foam or old brown soap, moist white pepper, bitter garden weeds, barley porridge but no real nuttiness. Crisp, dryish onset, green banana and unripe apricot notes, strongly vibrant effervescence but luckily small-bubbled, smooth and very slightly soapy mouthfeel; slick cereally and grainy, bit old cracker-like maltiness, feeling a tad 'empty', until a firm grassy and leafy bitterness sets in, low in aroma though. Ends with a long spicy bitterness, but in 'dull' kind of way, weedy and maybe unveiling the 'hidden' nutty aspect (hazelnut skin?). Dry, bitter finish, bit rooty, with slightly warming alcohol, but remaining clean and straightforward. There is something distinct and unusual in the aftertaste, a kind of raw and 'green' bitterness reinforcing the hops, I suppose this represents the added nuts, but it remains hard to identify precisely. Reminds me a lot of that Mbingu Gold we had in 2019: basically Gouden Carolus Tripel with an added flavour, which remains elusive but at the same time does change the beer in a subtle way. That said, too bad for that lightstruck effect - Keizer Karel would probably not have approved, but this is due to storage circumstances in the shop more than anything else, I suppose. In any case: like Mbingu Gold, underachieving for this usually quite prestigious series.

75cl bottle from Colruyt Etterbeek Jourdan supermarket in Brussels. F: big, white, long lasting. C: gold, light hazy. A: malty, floral, nice spicy hoppy, bit bready. T: full malty base, bready, bit caramel, noble hops, dry on the palate, light oily mouthfeel, medium to high carbonation, very nice harmonic long lasting bitterness, good balanced beer, enjoyed for sure.

On tap at Het Anker, Aug 27, 2021. This 7th installment of the Indulgence series is named Anno 1521 in order to celebrate the introduction of the Carolus Guilder by Charles V exactly five centuries ago. You can even use the cap covering the cork of the bottle as if it were a euro coin (only at the brewery shop and for a limited time, but it's fun.) This Belgian blonde ale pours very hazy orange-ish golden with a tight off-white head that leaves a thin layer on top after a while. Aroma is very malt-biased: bread, raw cereal, bakery. Mouthfeel is dry, light and subtle despite ABV. Bone-dry finish, quite bitter and very long-lingering. It ends superbly, despite not looking like much before.