Meh

Yellow/orange, cloudy pour with a stable whire head. Aromas of grain/wheat/malt, yeast, some sweet citrus, hint of banana. Taste is fairly similar. Nice like a boozy Hefeweizen, in a good way

Donkergeel bier met weinig tot geen schuim wat voor een Weizen echt een doodzonde is in mijn ogen. Smaak is bitterzoet met een ietwat fruitig fris licht zuurtje. Ik mis de echte banaansmaak die een echte goede Weizen voor mij moet hebben. Desondanks is dit bier best goed te drinken maar heeft het meer weg van een degelijke triple dan een Weizen.

Magus, lääge isegi, nisune, kuiv, mõru, vesine lõpp. Ok, veider

The new shape of BBP's classic Grosse Bertha - apparently they changed the yeast strain recently (to an actual Hefeweizen yeast, mind you), resulting in a slightly stronger version which now replaces (?) the original. Vichy bottle with the familiar striped label, grabbed from a shelf at the Delhaize supermarket in Lokeren. Thick and foamy, wheat-enhanced, egg-white, densely moussy, very regular, membrane-lacing head on a misty golden blonde robe with pale ochre-ish tinge and lots of enthusiastic visible sparkling. Aroma initially a bit lightstruck (oddly, coming from a brown bottle) but once this fades, as it always does, more flattering scents show up: freshly baked white bread crust, croissants, fried banana or plantain, clove, fenugreek, even a faint touch of star aniseed, pear, halfripe peach, raw turnip, field flowers, some damp kitchen towel, raw cauliflower, potato juice and dead tree leaf. Fruity onset, sweetish but not sweet, light banana, pear and peach, with this typical 'basic' sourish streak of wheat already underneath; fizzy carbonation with strong minerally effects, a bit much perhaps for a Weizen. Rounded, slick, 'wheaty' body with white-bread-crusty edge, a tad soapy, under ongoing yellow fruit and upcoming phenolic spiciness (clove upfront, some nutmeg), with an increasingly earthy character, leading to a bitter-earthy finish with a dash of floral hops providing somewhat 'stretched' leafy bitterness, bready and spicy yeastiness and bready malts. The bitterness from the hops - wet leaves, bitter earth and a touch of dandelion - remains pronounced enough to deviate from the classic Hefeweizen categorisation used here: this is more a Hopfenweizen than a Hefeweizen, but in a 'Belgian' kind of way, with lots of tripel- and blond-like features. I think the old Dutch moniker 'tarwetripel' is in order here, but in a more hoppy form. Nothing innovative, rather traditional in its 'Belgian' flavours in fact, but decent for sure, even though I think I still prefer the old Grosse Bertha...

33cl bottle from the brewery shop in Brussels. F: medium, white, average retention. C: gold, hazy. A: malty, wheat, banana, clove, bubblegum touch, citrus. T: medium to full malty wheat base, banana, clove, orange, nice balanced bitterness, bit tropical fruits, medium carbonation, not bad, enjoyed.