One of a budding series of very limited variations on Emmer, a flowery sour session IPA of sorts developed as an ‘apéritif’ beer by Leander Vertenten, a young zythologist based in Beveren, Eastern Flanders. His production now takes place at Verzet and I have only tasted the Gistgeest version of Emmer so far, perhaps I need to revisit that one. Anyway, this special edition is a blend of Emmer with mead from the Blacksmith’s Meadery in Schilde near Antwerp, ‘de facto’ resulting in a bragot (curiously spelled with only one ‘g’ but according to the brewer both options are historically correct); only 350 bottles in total were made. Loose and quickly disintegrated, open, snow white ring of bubbles, quickly gone into nothing; hazy apricot blonde robe. Aroma of apricot jam, lots of real honey, ripe Durondeau pear, demi-sec wine, hint banana, sweet white grapes, vanilla somewhere, pineapple and cake dough hints. Very sweet onset, notably honey-dominated with this ripe pear, sweet white grape and light banana all returning quickly, flat body (no carbonation) with rather vinous, but also sweet-sticky mouthfeel; smooth doughy core somewhere but the beer remains very hard to find, so that in the end, the mead dominates completely, carrying on these sweet ripe yellow-fruity notes along with an aspect reminiscent of vanilla sugar. There is hardly anything ‘beery’ to be found here so had I not know, I would probably have identified this as a true mead rather than a braggot (mead-beer blend), especially in the finish where cloying honey sweetness prevails. In all, quite a tasty honey drink for sure and highly enjoyable, but it needs more outspoken beery flavours to fully qualify as a braggot – perhaps using a stronger and maltier beer than the frail Emmer could hit the intended goal a bit more accurately next time?