Bucketlist Series N°17: Sleep under the Stars
Brouwerij The Musketeers in Sint-Gillis-Waas, East Flanders, Belgium 🇧🇪
IPA - Imperial New England / Hazy Regular|
Score
6.99
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Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7
I must admit that I am beginning to lose track of all these Bucketlist beers by Musketeers, located in my home region (Waasland in between Ghent and Antwerp), but this NEDIPA seems to be the seventeenth already, brewed with - apart from barley malt of course - rye, wheat and oats, all malted; oddly, though perhaps less so in a Belgian context, the hop varieties, which is usually considered the essence of anything IPA these days, remain undisclosed. Can (a beautifully shiny and colourful one) from De Hopduvel. Quite thick and firm, egg-white, thickly 'Brugse kant'-like lacing, irregular but robust, stable head on a more misty than 'deeply' hazy, warm golden blonde robe with apricot hue and fine strings of visible sparkling. Citrus-forward aroma of lime blossoms, orange zest, pomelo, dried lemonbalm, chamomile, Graham crackers, drying grass, bread crumbs, lilacs in spring (briefly), not quite ripe pear, herb cheese (faint), dry and dusty gravel. Fruity onset but not overly exuberant - at least for the intended style - with the fruitiness provided by a mixture of restrained esters and aromatic hops, yet not in the sweet-sultry tropical way one all too often sees in hazy IPAs today, more in a citric, bitterish, 'dryish' way, almost closer to the old West Coast IPAs than to NEIPA; hints of unripe peach, pear peel, unripe mandarin, active carbonation with very minerally effect - much more so than is typical for the style - running through the whole beer. Smooth, medium full, cracker- and bread crust-like pale maltiness, dryish and very low in residual sugars, a bit creamy, meeting with bittering hops in the end - citrusy and citrus pith-like primarily, but also floral and a bit spicy. Again, the lusciously sweet and perfumey tropical fruit effects of a typical present-day NEDIPA are lacking; something 'dusty' and petrichor-like blows over this admittedly quite rich, but somewhat onedimensional hop bitterness, the latter leaving a pleasantly peppery sting in the throat. I do not see anything truly NEDIPA-like here, so I could be harsh in my rating and deduct a serious amount of points for missing the point (if you get my drift), but this is not a bad beer per se - in fact it is a very pleasant, Belgian style IPA with a vague 'global' influence to it, and part of it (only part of it, mind you) does take me back to those wonderful very first Troubadour Magma specials these brewers made, many years ago now. There is something nostalgic going on here, in that sense - have a point for that.
Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
17/IV/25 - 33cl can from Geers (Oostakker), shared @ holiday in France, BB: 24/II/27 12:05, L9611250224 (2025-364)
Completely clear (supposed to be a hazy ipa, I’m deducting points for this!) deep yellow blond beer, nothing hazy at all! Small creamy white head, unstable, falls down quickly, slightly adhesive. Aroma: fruity notes up front, white grapes, citrus touch, yeasty, slightly dank, a bit grassy. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: citrus notes, very bitter, grassy, hoppy, a bit resinous, fruity, some tropical fruits, a bit smoky, earthy character. Aftertaste: hoppy, grassy, bitter, some citrus, grapefruit, slightly sweet, ok.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7.5
Creamy, dense yellowish head over hazy orange-golden beer, some lace. Intense fresh hops, very slightly catty. Hopflowers, rainwater, lupulin. Quite fruity, fresh hops, citrus, nectarine & peach, unripe grapes. Bitterish, very slight sourish edge - fruity ; lunaria. Medium bodied at least. Good carbonation, very slick, gristslick. Ticks all the boxes. Less sweet than many DIPA's - all the better.