7.4

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

New beer commissioned by a diner (or rather, 'frituur') in Lokeren, with a name referring to this smallish city in East Flanders; executed at Brewmine TAP in Hasselt, a very different side of Flanders, somewhat surprisingly. Offered in 33 cl Vichy bottles and 75 cl bottles in the Delhaize supermarket of - where else - Lokeren. Bit of a gusher, so be ware. Thick and frothy, pillowy, egg-white, membrane-lacing, dense and almost creamy, stable head on a cloudy peach blonde robe with 'dirty' orangey tinge. Aroma of ripe banana, overripe yellow plum, Durondeau pear, cooked parsnip, brioche bread, old dry apple cake, clove, dried chamomile, chestnut honey, vague hints of mandarin, flour, grass, sugared lemon, limestone, oatmeal porridge, petrichor. Sweetish, estery onset, banana ester but not too plumply so, refreshed by a citrusy note (mandarin) which could come from added curaçao (the ingredients list annoyingly only mentions 'spices'), with some side effects of pear, peach and yellow plum, also including a sourish undertone which persists throughout and may hint at some onsetting lactic infection, but at this stage remains quite fresh and undisturbing (maybe I should have another one after a few weeks or so). Lively, even prickly carbonation, distracting a bit from the flavour but remaining acceptable for this style of beer, through a softly brioche-bready and flour-like maltiness, smoothened by oatmeal, which also adds a sharper graininess to the whole. Residual, honeyish sugars oversee this spreading of soft pale malts, but that underlying sourness maintains balance in the aforementioned citric way, even near the finish; there, a glimpse of more added spices comes in, but very subtly so - perhaps just the dried citrus peel returning (not sure at this point if it is curaçao though - Brewmine TAP may have used dried mandarin or orange peel for a change because that sure is what it tastes like). All the way at the back, a discreet yet important, grassy and very floral hoppiness sits, providing much-needed bitterness in a beer which has remained all too sweet up to this point. Intended as a simple crowd pleaser, I must admit that there is something 'sparkly' and bright to this one - as if it has been indirectly influenced by the global IPA craze and yet has no clue as to what that craze is about. A bit odd, remaining too sweet for too long, but managing to create a fragile balance in the end - with a kind of sourishness running through it that I fear will end in infection, possibly coming from the dried citrus peel they used (if that is what they used - as said, the ingredients list does not provide any details). Not too shabby, less boring and predictable than I was expecting, but sweet and a tad uncontrolled.