7.6

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 10 | Overall - 7.5

Bottle 0,75 ltr: Cloudy goldamber coulered brew with an very dry bitter taste with hints of grapefruit, orange, lemon and some delicate caramel.

7.2

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

Dark golden colour with lasting head. Tonnes of malts and a really well rounded hop bitterness. Old school earthy hops, nothing fruity. Really bitter and refreshing. Very well made.

8

Amber with a lasting white head. Malty aroma of toffee and bread, with light spicy yeast and a touch of herbal hops. Crisp and clean malty flavour with light herbal hops and a smooth, but very bitter finish

6

On tap. A clear deep golden beer with a white head. Aroma of wet grainy malt, straw. Taste of intense dry grainy malt, cereals, straw. Long bitter finish.

6

Smooth mild bitter beginning. Grainy with a bitter dry finish. Grain, smooth bitterness, not too deep. Sessional with a deep bitter finish.

7.5

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

Bottle. Color: Slightly hazy orange amber, stable off-white head. Aroma: Malty, bread, subtle fruity hop. Taste: Malty, bread, caramel hints. Combined with a nice amount of citrus and bit piney hop. Some bitter orange peel. Medium body, average carbonation. Medium body, just under average carbonation. Light sweetness, over moderate bitterness going to over medium at the finish. Another very good De Ranke beer. Nothing over the top but always good craftmanship.

6

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

Draft. A cloudy amber beer with a lazing beige head. The aroma has notes of malt, straw, and a bit of caramel. The flavor is sweet with notes of malt, straw, and caramel, leading to a bitter finish.

8.1

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5

Tap. Nüetinginenough, Brussels. Hazed deep gold. Beautiful white froth. Nose has De Ranke bitter hoppage. Bready sweet malt. Bit of sour. Bit of mineral. Taste is super bitter with a soft bready sweetness. Clean and biting bitterness throughout. Foamy carbonation. Big bitterness to finish. Lovely lager.

8.1

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5

75cl Bottle @ Belgium. Pours hazy amber Golden with a small White head. Minerally and rustic De ranke yeast beneath White crusty malts, grass and a dash of fresh citrussy hops. Crisp, dry and bitter but Well balanced. If anyone could pull this off it would be De Ranke. Vibrant and alive tasty quencher.

7.5

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8

An unlikely new offering from old De Ranke: a tribute to Sam Adams’ Boston Lager apparently, one of a handful of hugely influential beers often considered to be ‘motors’ of the global craft beer movement (it was launched in 1985 and offered a qualitative alternative to the bland macro lagers dominating the U.S. beer market at the time). On a much smaller scale and somewhat later in time, I guess De Ranke, originating in the nineties as a Belgian brewery averse to the dominance of sweetened beers on the Belgian market of that time, can be interpreted as a direct forerunner of 21st-century beer evolutions in Belgium so in terms of historical influence, Sam Adams Boston Lager and brewery De Ranke are certainly comparable. This beer shows an egg-white, moussy and stable head lacing in shreds over a misty warm ‘metallic’ orange blonde robe, almost inclining towards amber. Aroma of dried dandelion and wormwood leaves, bread crust, dried pumpkin flesh, old grapefruit zest, moist toast, grass, vague sulfuric touch somewhere. Crisp, clean onset, minerally and lively carbonation, smooth and lacking in esters – shifting immediately to a mildly toasty, bread-crusty, very lightly hard-caramelly, bit peanutty maltiness, soon bittered by strong, leafy, peppery, tonic water-like hop bitterness adding aspects of quinine, mugwort and dried grapefruit peel, making for a long, full, quenching finish. Very characterful, notably more bitter and more ‘leafy-hoppy’ than the generally cleaner, smoother U.S. legend after which it is named, but in terms of looks and malt profile the comparison is easily made. As to beer style: De Ranke confusingly refers to this beer as a “Belgian-American Lager IPA” which is by no means a commonly accepted description of any beer type, so allow me to interpret it as “dry-hopped lager inspired by American IPL but hopped the European way”, which basically nullifies the IPL categorization – and indeed, for me too a more outspoken American C-hops effect would probably not have been a bad thing here. Still, as a kind of generic or unspecified dry-hopped amber lager, whether it be American or European in style, this De Ranke Boston Lager worked quite well for me, showing a pleasant malt profile, a robust hoppiness and a very high degree of balance, drinkability and smoothness. In all: solid De Ranke quality in a lager – who would have thought (and yes, I know Simplex was a kind of ‘dress rehearsal’ for this one, in a sense…).