5.6

Appearance - 5 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 5 | Overall - 5.5

Winter tripel (oddly but deliberately) from a home brewery near Peer in Limburg limitedly going commercial since a couple of years; longneck bottle like the others from this brewery. Violent gusher, which I was prepared for - but even then it was impossible to open the bottle without loss. Uneven-bubbled, thick and frothy, cobweb-lacing, egg-white, pillowy, firm head on a cloudy peach blonde beer with pale brownish tinge and lots of dead yeast and protein bits everywhere - looking rather messy. Aroma of blonde candi sugar, 'graanjenever', overripe pear and medlar, autumn leaves, triple sec, honey, raw cake dough, fried apples, cooked carrots, solvents (glue), some wet dog, clove, cheap vodka, dust, almond, wet brown paper bags, old ginger powder, methylated spirits. Sweet onset, lots of residual 'blonde' sugar almost - but not quite - covering a sourish undertone hinting at infection, wild esteriness along the lines of ripe pear, medlar, banana, cooked apple and overripe peach, softish carbonation, bit sticky but otherwise rather thinnish body; caramelly malt sweetishness with a lot of breadiness, most of which comes from yeast, which - apart from producing an array of sweet esters - also pushes upwards a strong phenolic effect, consisting of the usual clove but also something medicinal and solventy (glue, methylated spirits). Some herbal and leafy hops but little bitterness, with that unfermented sugary, heavy honeyish sweetness dominating, over a powdery bready yeast effect, onsetting oxidation (adding insult to injury) and, last but not least, a wry, very strongly 'oude graanjenever'-like alcohol burn. I hate jenever and this really tastes like it in its finish - maybe it is the relative proximity of 'jenever city' Hasselt which is responsible for this, but I am rather inclined to think that this beer is way too boozy for what it can handle; on top of that, something went seriously wrong with refermentation here, explaining the gushing and overt phenolic effects. Overly sweet, solventy (almost headache-inducing), boozy, very messy and completely unbalanced: this tastes like some seriously flawed kitchen brew alright. This home brewery still has a lot to learn if this concoction is supposed to be a limited edition they are proud of: go back to brewing school, I would say, and retreat from the commercial market until you are capable of brewing at least a technically correct tripel...