7.6

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

Pale ale according to the 'SMASH' principle: single malt, in this case pale ale malt, and single hop, in this case the old familiar Centennial; can bought from a webshop specialised in regional products from the Liège province in the northeast of Wallonia, apparently from a local microbrewery erected in June last year. Thick and frothy, audibly crackling, egg-white, whipped cream- and bath foam-like, paper-lacing, stable head on an initially near clear, pale orange blonde beer with warm peachy hue, almost tending to amber, hazy with sediment and showing a slender but steady column of visible sparkling in the middle. Aroma of toasted onion, wet toast, bread crust, toasted peanuts, dried grapefruit peel, dandelion, white pepper, orange pith, persimmon, cigarette tobacco, tree bark, 'witlof', red apple peel, touch clove, limestone, vague brown soap. Cleanly fruity onset, restrained in sweetness with faint hints of persimmon, tamarillo and dried apple peel, lots of minerality going on underneath with a 'spring water'-like feel to it, paired with lively effervescence; smooth, bit oily mouthfeel, bread-crusty and toasty maltiness with a light sweetishness hidden within, but dominated by toasted bitterishness, in itself reinforced by the hops, providing on the one hand a retronasal experience of dried orange peel, white pepper and toasted onion and on the other hand a long-stretched if relatively 'friendly' leafy bitterness, eventually blotting the limited sweetness and fruitiness that was initially there - but all remaining balanced and fairly clean, even though a certain earthiness and clove-like phenolic spiciness are noticeable. Juiciness is established by minerality more than fruity esters here and it works, this whole beer feels more 'English' (and in that sense old fashioned pale ale-like) than most similar attempts from the same region. Remarkably focused and sleek, with just a tad less earthiness and more New World hop aromatics this would fully qualify as a true APA for me; in this form, it balances somewhat between EPA and Walloon ambrée but a 'pale ale' it certainly is, and a good one in my book, if quite old-fashioned. Better than I expected, to be frank, but do not go out of your way to get it either.