Another new Tartaruga beer, something I meet with enthusiasm. Bottle from Beergium. Thickly ’papery’ lacing, densely moussy but regular, off-white head with good retention, remaining closed most of the time, crowning a hazy copper coloured beer with maroon reddish hue. Lovely and very elegant aroma of fresh passion fruit (though perhaps a tad less exuberant than one would expect from a New Zealand hop profile), rambutan, fresh toast, roasted pine nuts, pink grapefruit, the bitter white underside of orange peel, chestnut, cedar wood, sweet potato, soap, fresh red raspberries, old cloves, dry tree branches, salsify, straw, tonic water, wormwood, strawberry wine, rosé champagne, radish. Crisp, fruity, lively onset, restrainedly sweetish with a sourish edge, hinting at red apple peel, dried mango and passion fruit but all rather subdued and clean, in a finely but adequately carbonated, lambrusco-like physical environment; smooth, lightly soapy mouthfeel. Nutty and eventually toasted malts make up the middle phase, restrainedly caramelly sweetish at first but shifting towards a mild bitterness in the end, supporting a much stronger, spicy, resinous hop bitterness with floral and grapefruity qualities, releasing some subtle hints of tropical fruit and (more so) pine retronasally as well as establishing a long-lasting, peppery bitterness coating the back of the mouth and throat, but still remaining fairly gentle and very elegant. Elegance is key here: as with their Super Fresca, Tartaruga manages to present us with a true gem, not overdone like many other new IPAs but excelling in moderation and utmost finesse, completely free of errors. Lovely beer in which all components are brilliantly played out against each other. I’m a fan of this brewery and I hope much more is to come (they are already in the process of finishing their fourth beer now, apparently). As for style: IPA for sure, but a ’red IPA’ like many American craft breweries do; I could be mistaken but I suspect this is the first of this particular subkind in Belgium and I, for one, welcome it heartily, as it perfectly balances the inherent toasted malt character of a beer of this colour and style with a delicately aromatic hop character. Big cheers to Tartaruga - I even like the name.

Bottle from De Hopduvel. Hazy amber/red colour, creamy white foam. Nose of grapefruit, pineapple, caramel. Dry and bitter, tropical fruity, light sweet, dry and bitter. Well balanced. Very nice.

Imported from my RateBeer account as Tartaruga Simply Rossa (by Tartaruga Fine Brewing):
Aroma: 8/10, Appearance: 5/5, Taste: 9/10, Palate: 4/5, Overall: 17/20, MyTotalScore: 4.3/5

27/VII/16 - 33cl bottle from Geers (Oostakker) @ home - BB: 26/III/18 (2016-790)

Rather cloudy amber beer, big creamy irregular yellowish head, pretty stable, adhesive, leaving a nice lacing in the glass. Aroma: pretty fruity, some tropical fruits, malty, bit of caramel. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: very malty start, grains, bit sweet, lovely bitterness, resinous, some citrus, grapefruit. Aftertaste: more citrus, tropical fruits, grapefruit, bit resinous, nice bitter finish, what a lovely IPA!

330 ml. bottle. BBF 26/03/2018. Amber ale brewed with NZ hops. Hazy deep & indeed amber, collapsing fluffy big white bubbles, head is big initially but quickly collapses. Nose is malty farmhouse orange peel, substantial malt, sweet hay, rustic barn hop, old orange peel & reasonably big malt profile. Not the kind of profile you would expect from NZ hops usually, more rustic with big overripe stone fruit & reasonable dark bread malt. Lively body, taste is lively, substantial malt body, lots of grain & bread, hay, barn, burned sugar leading into bitterness, bitterness is hay, barn, rustic, touch chewing gum, less fruity than I would expect, there is some overripe stone fruit here but more in a classical BE fashion rather than from hop, some burned sugar and hay. There is thank God no BE yeast profile going on here. The hoppy classification on the bottle is a bit misleading or rather this is not classical USA hop as I expected, there is bitterness here. This is a great low ABV beer, nice malt profile, interesting barn, bread & burned sugar notes. My second one from these guys after the Super Fresca, I am digging here, not sure if these guys are good or if De Ranke brews for them – De Ranke just rocks. Very rich, great malt profile, interesting bread profile, near barn house substantial bitterness.