Draught at Row 34, 6/12/15
Moderately hazy, though nowhere near cloudiness of the bottle pictured here. Copper-peach with lighter blonde hues and a strong, moderately well-retained white head.
So I read all about these guys, how they are doing the hyper-local thing and such and then saw where they are hopping/dry-hopping this with American hops. Was kind of appalled, not gonna lie. Why you would go through the trouble of making a delicate, Belgian beer like this only to cover up the nuances with domineering American hops, is beyond me. Anyways, after smelling the beer, they either used an incredibly low amount of hops or some varietal that very closely mimics noble hops. There are almost no hop notes in the nose. A touch of grass, light spice and maybe a bit of perfuminess, but by and large, the nose is dominated by a lovely Dupont-esque yeast (plaster, very soft fruits, black/white pepper), high minerality from their water and moderate sulfur notes (either from the water or the yeast). Incredibly light and reserved, with no alcohol noted.
In the mouth, it is still quite light and reserved, as one would expect from a Belgian table beer. Comparisons to something like Avril/Biolegere may seem apt here, though it falls a little short of that one, having much less supple maltiness (here the malts are very attenuated, but just don’t have that token touch of honey) and prone to a touch of huskiness. Varied grains, light dough, and soft yeast esters (apples, nectarines) all provide a pleasant flavor, with softly fruity, mildly perfumy/spicy hops sitting in the background. A very lovely beer, and nailing the malt apparency/suppleness in these very low gravity Belgian ales is one of the most difficult tasks a brewer can face; they’ve done very well here but still have some room for improvement.