Epos

The blonde alcohol-free beer in La Trappe’s range of trappist beers – and the first truly blonde non-alcoholic trappist, after the same brewery already launched a dark version (Nillis) some years ago. Thanks to Bart A. for sharing this one at Biercafé Den Bril in Moorsel near Aalst. Moussey, snow white, membrane-lacing, firm head lasting over a misty pale yellow blonde robe with lots of lively sparkling. Aroma of raw grains, plastic, industrial white bread, minerals, unused cigarette paper, unripe banana, dried bitter plant seeds. Neutral onset, very sharply and minerally carbonated with vague notes of unripe banana and green pear, quickly shifting to a very grainy, monotonous flavour with a ‘nagging’ sourish undertone from beginning to end – a kind of dull sourishness I experienced mostly in low-quality Asian and African pale lagers. Ends with plastic- and rubber-like bitterness rather than ‘natural’ hop bitterness and otherwise remains quite ‘empty’ – like some eighties or nineties style non-alcoholic pale lager, in fact. In that sense a throwback in time, contrasting with all those increasingly sophisticated alcohol-free beers one sees flooding the market nowadays. Odd – I was expecting more, considering the proportionally much more successful Nillis.