7.1

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7.5

Another of these 'twisted' Straete brews: a witbier flavoured with not the classic coriander-curaçao combo Pierre Celis introduced to the genre in the sixties (and which has been slavishly followed in the decades that followed), but with eucalyptus, a seasoning found only very rarely in beer (yet all the more so in cough syrup). I recall a Berliner Weisse with eucalyptus concocted by Alvinne many years ago and I also recall being pleasantly surprised by it - unexpectedly - so I figured this one too is worth a shot. Very thick and foamy, egg-white, thickly plaster-lacing, audibly crackling, uneven-bubbled yet stable head on an initially clear, warm golden blonde robe with lots of visible sparkling, quickly shifting to a hazy, honey-yellow golden hue. Aroma of eucalyptus oil from afar, long before the other components shyly arrive: dried apple peel, bread crust, green banana, unripe pear, white soap, raw quince, chamomile, wet sandpaper, limestone. Spritzy onset, rather harsh carbonation distracting from the flavours and adding a souring aspect, painfully numbing the tip of the tongue before hints of green pear, Granny Smith apple and unripe peach unfold; slick, slender mouthfeel, coarsened by the (over)carbonation. The eucalyptus gradually creeps in over a cereally, thinly white-bready core, with some clear wheat sourishness but less clear wheat soapiness, only to become dominant in the end, with this minty, perfumey, cough syrup-like effect one can expect. Soft but persisting floral hops provide dryness in the end - as does the general dryness of the beer as such - and even establish a bit of bitterness, though this may well be due to the eucalyptus as well. A whiff of old dried citrus peel seems to linger at the back, reinforcing the aforementioned bitterness which lasts for a while - more 'deeply' so than is averagely the case in this style. The wheat is there, but the 'ensemble' does not shout 'witbier' to me - it seems to lack this typical soft soapiness and slickness it usually has, and therefore lacks a bit of elegance, tilting everything to a more grainy side, which is - unsurprisingly - dominated by the eucalyptus. That said, this spicing seems to dominate less than I was expecting: it is clear from half a yard away when the bottle is opened, but in the mouth it only spreads after the middle point of the flavour 'parcours'. The overcarbonation bothered me more than the eucalyptus, which is a bold find, but I am not convinced it really works in this kind of beer. An oddity for sure, but somewhat 'off' in comparison with the other Straete beers I tasted so far and definitely below their average quality level (at least from what I can judge up till now). Interesting effort to make witbier appealing again - after its popularity seriously declined in the past decade or three - but neither the classic Hoegaarden lover (now usually aged) nor the craft beer enthusiast will get wild about this, I think.