Pale lager of sorts - using Vienna malts - invented by a guy who allegedly lost a finger and had to 'compensate' for it by taking up brewing - a bizarre premise, mostly so because this is claimed to be a lager yet still comes from De Meester, from whom I have not encountered any bottom-fermented beer so far. Hugely thick and foamy, glass-filling, rocky (Tetra!), egg-white, densely moussey, plaster-like lacing, stable and firm head on an initially lightly hazy, warm 'old golden' robe with minuscule dots of proteins floating here and there. Aroma of raw green cereals, old dried basil, withering lettuce, petrichor, moist straw, homemade warm biscuit, vague honey, unripe Conference pear, raw sugar beet, sweetclover, clove-like phenols (4-vinyl guaiacol, which should not be present at all in any lager), sweet honey chicken or some chicken soup-like oxidation already setting in. Fruity onset, hints of green banana, unripe apricot and hard pear, sweetish but not too much, yet battered by a very fierce overcarbonation effect, adding more minerality than the actual flavours contain as well as some sourishness; sleek-edged cereally core, sweetish with a vague rusk-like accent (the Vienna malt, I guess) but primarily more sharply grainy, sadly oxidized with this 'rusty' oxidation scent rising up retronasally, even turning a bit honeyish, like in an old forgotten bottle of Hoegaarden Witbier or something alike. Grassy to floral hops in the finish but only very mildly so, adding not enough bitterness to counter a sweet effect that somehow sneaked its way in by this point, but there is also a lasting 'hoppy dustiness' which tries to shift things to bitter again, in an odd 'tug of war' of some kind. I believe that when this was young, when the malts and hops were fresh and frisky, it was quite a decent and elegant beer, but that annoying sweet 'streak' does not come from nowhere so I think even then it was too sweet, overcarbonated and too yeasty - yeasty enough, in fact, to make me believe that this is yet another Belgian style top-fermented blonde disguised as a lager (as I already suspected), and not the first one I encounter lately. Admittedly somewhat distinct, but the overcarbonation (and glass-filling head with each new pour) were every bit as annoying as the oxidation, which has clearly brought this whole brew to ruins by now, to put it overly dramatically. Odd concoction, unfortunately not too likeable in the shape and form it has reached me.

@ Mortierken, Meetkerke. Light hazy amber colour. Quiet bitter and citrussy with light sweet notes.