7.3

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

Blonde brewed for the 800th anniversary of the city of Wavre, the capital of the Walloon Brabant province, by trusted Jandrain-Jandrenouille. Medium sized, off-white, moussey and tiny-bubbled, slowly breaking head over a misty straw blonde beer with ochre-ish tinge and lots of enthusiastic visible sparkling. Aroma of halfripe banana, coriander powder, raw parsnip, dried lemon zest, croissant dough, sweet cicely, chamomile, damp strawbales, cooked turnip, horseradish paste, green pear, unripe peach, honey, young tree leaves in spring. Crisp onset, sweetish with clear banana ester next to impressions of pear, peach and vague pineapple; carbonation is very sharp, painfully numbing even, adding a souring effect as well as considerable minerality, through a slick, supple body. Dryish cereally and white-bready pale malts with a powdery yeast undertone, heavily spiced with coriander seed but also quite confidently hopped in a very floral, grassy and somewhat earthy way, a meadow in spring as it were, with a drying, quenching, saison-esque bitterness that lasts for quite a while, without completely overwhelming the sweet notes of fruitiness and maltiness. Typical Jandrain blonde, combining the sweetness of an average Belgian blonde with quite a pronounced hop bitterness and pleasantly 'Walloon' yeastiness, but also with a truckload of coriander. Accessible and far from impressive flavour-wise, but technically very well executed and satisfying enough.