8 March 2025. At Hal 16 (Dok Brewing).

Unripe plum, grape, mandarin, melon, cereal, bread crust. Sweetish melon & plum, sourish citrus, bready-yeasty body. Grassy hops in the finish, dry, cereally. Average carbonation. Good enough!

The newest Dok tripel to date, a genre they seem to hate but do not want to avoid for commercial reasons - quite understandably, but the name and accompanying description on social media say it all, they do not longer make a secret out of the fact that tripel (and its lesser variant, blond) is something that has been worn out completely on the Belgian market. Before agreeing with them out of sheer prejudice, let us see what this monotonously grey can (even the looks of it say enough) has to offer... Thick moussey, large-bubbled, beaten egg-white, dot-lacing head on a hazed golden blonde robe with ochre tinge. Aroma of bread crust, old crackers, dried dill, overripe shallot (the Simcoe), dandelion, young mugwort, straw, unripe apricot, aged cumin cheese somewhere, 'graanjenever', raw potatoes and turnips, raw mussels, cow fodder. Quite crisp onset, slightly sweetish but only restrainedly so with vague notes of banana peel, green pear and unripe peach, minerally undertone linked to lively - yet not harshly stinging - carbonation but more so to something oddly but persistently salty running through it all; smooth, but fairly full mouthfeel. Cereally pale maltiness, straightforward as usual in Dok tripels, clean, with a slight honeyish sweetish touch around the edges but much more subtly so than is custom in Belgian tripels nowadays; florally hoppy finish with dashes of grass, green onion (Simcoe) and unripe melon, providing basic bitterness but this latter aspect is reinforced by a light wodka-like astringency and warmth. Traces of sweet-aromatic field flowers (honey even) and yellow-green fruit linger. Even though the name, description and even packaging would put off any beer drinker, this is, in all, not a bad tripel (or blond - at 7.6% ABV it is definitely at the lowermost edge of tripel); in fact, when compared with all the similar tasting beers Dok has brewed in their eight years of existence, this is surely one of the more 'furnished', full and creamy ones, certainly capable of pleasing the many clueless people that enter the brewery in Hal 16 searching for something that may possibly converge with what their underdeveloped palates are used to. Well done, Janos - you are obviously capable of brewing a very solid beer without passion.

19/III/25 - on tap @ DOK Brewing (Gent), BB: n/a (2025-303)

Clear orange beer, small creamy dense white head, unstable, adhesive, leaving a nice lacing in the glass. Aroma: lots and lots of banana, yeasty, sweet impression. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: pretty sweet start, lots of banana, bubble gum, sugary, practically no bitterness. Aftertaste: sweet touch, banana, yeasty, malty, grains, good stuff, very pleasant tripel.