Van Steenberge has discovered one of the craft beer movement's most enduring innovations: barrel ageing, and boy, will we know about it - not just a string of barrel aged Gulden Draak variants has seen the light of day meanwhile, even Fourchette already has two barrel aged variants now, of which this is the more recent one, aged for fifteen months in vermouth barrels. Luxury bottle - and quite an expensive one at that - from the Delhaize supermarket at the Watersportbaan in Ghent. Opens with a loud 'bang' and lots of gun smoke; pours with a huge, initially glass-filling, egg-white, dense, cobweb-lacing, foamy head, very slowly receding over a hazy ochre-tinged golden blonde robe. Aroma of freshly cut ripe pear, apple blossoms in spring, raw Kohlrabi, dried tarragon, green banana, white bread, coriander seed of course, tulips, woodruff or even Maitrank, dried turnip, straw, apple peel, juniper berries, leftover dough when warming up. Sweet, fruity onset, banana, pear and white peach, fizzily carbonated but still with soft, smooth, fluffy body; white-bready pale malt sweetishness complemented with slick, slightly soapy 'wheatiness' - let us not forget that the base beer is a blend of tripel and witbier! - sugary on top, but not as much as I was anticipating so generally drier than expected. Spicy finish, coriander seed upfront from the witbier, but further adorned with the multifaceted inherent spiciness of the vermouth, with notes of rue, angelica, wormwood, juniper berry and thyme. This complex combo acquires extra complexity when a gentle but important floral hop bitter note sets in, remaining gentle enough not to disturb the play of herbs and spices - while a vague glow of white wine-like alcohol ensues. Summarisable as a spicy semi-tripel, admittedly consisting of interesting layers of flavour that work relatively well with each other - in any case much better than I am used to from usually crude and unrefined Van Steenberge. Still not worth its price tag as far as I am concerned, but I cannot deny that I was expecting worse. Could it be that Van Steenberge, with its lazy habit of creating 'new' beers by blending existing worn-out recipes, has finally become capable of achieving greatness? Not yet, clearly, but this one is a clear step closer to it, I must honestly admit...