The first beer from the new and independent Amburon brewery, a typical strong Belgian blonde; I suspect this is basically a somewhat stronger version of the Amburon Blond they did at Anders. Moussy, regularly shaped, barely lacing, egg-white head quickly dissipating in the middle but well-retaining on the edge; lightly hazy straw blonde colour with vague greenish hue, no visible fizz; turns a deeper ochre-ish golden and completely cloudy with sediment added, as expected. Aroma of banana or even bubblegum (clear isoamylacetate), yellow raisins, Cantaloupe, ripe gooseberries, camomile, red apple peel, ripe pear, raw turnip, freshly cut grass, old white pepper, gin (as in: clearly detectable alcohol), coriander seed, moist curcuma powder, bread crumbles, old cheese crust, dried wormwood or other bitter herbs, burnt plastic, bitter honey, unpleasant wood glue-like solvents getting stronger as the beer warms up. Crisp, spritzy onset, sharp minerally carbonation deforming the actual flavor, which initially consists of fruity esters (banana, gooseberry, pineapple), sourish with sweetishness dominating but nowhere cloying; overcarbonation proceeds over a lightly bready, somewhat grainy middle with slight honeyishly sweet notes (residual white candi sugar as well as banana ester, I guess), leading to a moderately yeasty finish in which the banana flavor holds (too) strong amidst lingering graininess, soapy coriander seed, some minerally ’after-effects’ of the overcarbonation, a (much too clear) hint of gin-like alcohol not unlike in a Duvel but less subtle, and a dash of earthy, floral, lightly spicy hops providing too little relieving bitterness, clearly - and obviously intentionally - much less so than in Tungri Bitter, its hop forward counterpart. Technically more or less okay but, frankly, boring: this is yet another attempt at rivalling Duvel it seems, be it less strong, but clearly identifying itself with the Duvel-sparked, late 20th-century ’edelbier’ tradition (to quote an old OBP term) and adding absolutely nothing to it. Decent by itself, nothing deeply disturbing or off-putting here, but if ’originality’ would be a criterion, this scores very low in my book; it is sweet, alcoholic, too phenolic and does not deliver anything I haven’t seen or tasted before in this style. Still, since it’s a technically more or less correct beer - though far from the masterpiece some obviously fake ratings here are trying to portray - I’ll grant it the benefit of the doubt by giving it a 3/5. I just hope this new Amburon project will soon come up with something more exciting than this, and I’m not talking about Tungri Bitter, which is doubtlessly more interesting than this basic rendition.