Draught @ Délirium - Taphouse, Impasse de la Fidélité 4, Brussels, Belgium 1000. [ As Val-Dieu Cuvée Spéciale 800 ans ].Unclear matt medium yellow colour with a average, frothy, good lacing, mostly lasting, off-white to white head. Aroma is moderate malty, pale malt, fruity malt, moderate hoppy, grapefruit, moderate yeasty, yeast - fruity yeast. Flavor is moderate sweet and bitter with a long duration, yeast and hop bitter, fruity yeast, fruity hops, pale malt. Body is medium, texture is oily to watery, carbonation is soft. [20160919] 7-3-7-3-14

Draft. Amber beer with a whitish head. Light citrus aroma. Yeast and grapefruit flavor with summer fruit. Medium bodied. Yeast and light grapefruit lingers with light spice.

Sampled from the tap at Red Cow North Loop. Pours a clear pale yellow with a gold hue and a white head that dissipates to the edges and laces slightly. Aroma has lots of straw with light Belgian yeast and a hint of flora. Flavor has lots of straw and grass with light flora and light fruits supporting.

Draft at ØL Beercafe & Bottle Shop, Walnut Creek, CA. Hazy pale gold, white head. Aroma and taste of fruit, spice, Belgian yeast, faint bubble gum, lemon notes. Good.

Dry-hopped (and slightly less strong) edition of Val-Dieu Blonde, intended to celebrate the 800 years of existence of the abbey in which this company is situated - not the 800 years of existence of the brewery as such, of course, but I assume that goes without saying. Bottle from Fontana in Sint-Niklaas. Very intricately lacing, ’papery’, thick and moussy, ’Belgian’ cobweb-style head over a hazy straw blonde beer with green olive tinge, showing a ’fog’ of yeast bits all around. Aroma of fried potatoes, withering lettuce, quite a lot of DMS (overcooked white cabbage) which I passionately hate, melting rubber, pear, unripe plum, fermenting grass, banana, pineapple, brown soap, coriander seed, dried ginger root having lost most of its fragrance, wet cardboard, old lemon peel, lemon cake past its best before date, wet hay, minerals, white bread crust. Fruity, fairly lively onset, lots of red apple, banana and peach hints, sweetish with a balancing souring edge (gooseberry), medium carbo, bit minerally but not over the top especially for this style, smooth and slick, light but still ’filling’ mouthfeel. Cereally and lightly bready maltiness in the middle with persisting, yet subdued fruitiness on top, leading to a bittering finish of leafy, spicy hops, a tad tonic water-like at first but rapidly becoming more ’sedate’, yet lasting for a long time, in an earthy, sufficiently bittering manner; some floral aromas are released retronasally but I get none of the Citra properties described by several of the below ratings. On the contrary, I do get a lot of soapy, and frankly annoying coriander seed during and after swallowing... Seemingly this is one to be consumed as fresh as possible, like any hop forward beer, and my bottle, though far from ’old’ to averagely Belgian standards, has apparently past its prime. Still, I can only judge this beer the way I get it in front of me, and honestly: a ’festive’ beer could have been a tad more spectacular. This brewery has made decent beers so far, but I have not spotted any substantial evolution in their range since their beginnings in the late nineties. Their beers excel in ’safety’, cautiously trying to seduce Belgian consumers who are used to the Leffe and Grimbergen clichés and surely this has brought them commercial prosperity seen the fact that they have become well known and widely available in the two decades of their existence, but none of their beers is any help in forwarding the international ’beer wave’ in this particularly rusty beer country. This celebration beer does not help me appreciating their range in being anything more than average, I’m afraid. Just an ’okay’ Belgian blonde with a tad more hopping than average, and plagued by that dreadful DMS that seems to be omnipresent in all these hastily constructed ’new’ Belgian ales. Case closed.

Farmhouse funk nose. Clear golden, thick head, good lace. Dry lemon and funk. Light body, soft carbonation. Simple and very quaffable, a nice table beer, not much of a hop presence.

33 cl bottle. Pours cloudy yellow to orange with a small white head. Aroma is citrusfruity. Mild fruity, estery. Floral, citrusy. Mellow. Fruity and citrusy. Crisp hoppy and fruity far finish.

Imported from my RateBeer account as Val-Dieu Cuvée 800 (by Brasserie de l'Abbaye du Val-Dieu):
Aroma: 7/10, Appearance: 4/5, Taste: 8/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 15/20, MyTotalScore: 3.7/5

29/X/16 - 33cl bottle from Geers (Oostakker) @ home, BB: 6/VII/17 (2016-1249)

Pretty cloudy blond beer, small creamy off-white head, pretty stable, bit adhesive. Aroma: spicy, dry, pretty malty, grains, fruity, some biscuits. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: pretty yeasty, fruity, citrus, little hoppy, nice, more fruits, some peaches. Aftertaste: slightly spicy, yeast, bitter hops, bit floral. Probably the best of the blond Val-Dieu beers!

Pours clear blonde, good white head. Smell is citrussy, yeast. Taste is fresh, bitter, very malty, mild citrus notes ( yet very clearly citrussy ) ok yeastyness, the scent mkes you expect way worse. Pretty ok in general. Bit sweet at the start maybe ( canfy-like aspects, pretty sure they’re from the hops ) but nothing really unbalanced

Sampled draft @ Moeder Lambiek Fontainas. Clear sparkling golden, little white bubbly head. Nose is light soap, sweet sugar, citrus, very uniform & neutral. Taste is rather sweet soap, sweet lemon candy, big white sugar, lively, uniform. Sweet neutral Belgian, little going but easy & pleasant white sugar affair, some soap & dash banana. I see mass appeal here, this is not a beer that I associate in any way with dry hopping or anything hoppy for that matter.