11 December 2022. Christmas Beer Evening @ home with the lovely Anke!

A: hazy amber, thin, off-white head.
A: candied plum, fig, speculoos, vanilla, liqueur.
T: sweet plum, fig, apple, cookie malts and spices.
F: peppery hops, spices, dried fruit, faint vanilla & warming brandy-like alcohol.
P: full body, oily texture, soft carbonation.
Lacks the balancing hoppiness of a modern Barley Wine; nevertheless an enjoyable sipper by De Meester.

Cinnamon- and vanilla-flavoured barleywine by this West-Flemish brewery gaining considerable support from local consumers lately; at Dijleschuimers Winters Bierfestival. Egg-white, moussy, membrane-lacing, stable head, hazy orangey peach blonde robe. Aroma of ripe pear, pineapple ester, banana, clove, peach jam, wet old bread, honey, oxidized red apple, bubblegum, coriander seed rather than cinnamon, ‘jenever’, sweat, raw turnip, potato juice and hardly any vanilla. Sweet white candi-sugary onset, banana, peach and pear notes, medium carb, full and rounded, slick body – a bit too slick for a barleywine actually; caramelly and sweet-bready malts under honeyish residual sugar with hints of clove and coriander but again very little cinnamon and even less vanilla. Floral hop bitterishness and somewhat wry, ‘jenever’-like booze turn the end in a somewhat more bitter direction, but bubblegummy and honeyish sweetness prevails. Feels like a spiced tripel rather than anything truly barleywine-like, a bit as feared. Not really my cup of tea and missing the point – my usual experience with this brewery (a few exceptions aside); I still do not get what all the fuss is about, though I imagine traditional Belgian beer drinkers with little to no knowledge of foreign – or now, global – styles may be more impressed by this brewery’s strong ales than I am.