Tasting glass draft @ brewery. Very hazy orange, huge off-white head. Nose is weird acidic soy yoghurt, sour milky, strange white bread. Taste is weird herbal peel, yoghurt, sugar, spoiled grain, oily lemon, sugar, finish is some cascara which I believe they used here & for which I do not care. Body is oily cascara, pretty much flat. Whole seems weird, messy, unintended. Not a fan.

Bouteille 33cl, trouble cuivrée, col épais blanc cassé assez crémeux et tenace. Arôme citronné et houblonné avec une pointe d’herbacé, malt cara pâle, Munich, et peu en terme de rétro poivré. Palais offre peu en terme d’impression de levure type lager, retrouve un poivré qui est discret sans vraiment ajouter complexité à la bière. Le tout est un peu terreux avec une petite pointe chocolatée en fin de bouche. Retrouve un coté houblonné noble léger. Ne retrouve également pas le profil de pelure de citron.

Dorée, léger trouble, col blanc-cassé. Arôme au nez torréfié plaisant, café, fin touche d’amertume en rétro sur une base malt restant centrée sur de Munich, cara-pâle. Palais est bien au niveau des malts, cara pâle, léger pils?, houblonné avec un bon profil versant sur les agrumes. Le léger ajout de cascara est plaisant et donne une belle note de café en fin de bouche sans pour cela être trop dominante. Fini herbacé avec une effervescence bien placée et présente.

33cl de Beerstorming. Ambrée, col blanc-cassé. Arôme offre un bouquet clairette centré sur les épices, retrouve cannelle et girofle. Petite touche de malté biscuité en rétro. Palais est malté, caramel, note épicée rappelant bien le vin chaud avec la cannelle et girofle sans être surfait. Malt pils , pâle, amertume modérée perçant en fin de bouche. Le tout reste ponctué par un petit ’crunch’ de biscuité qui permet de dégager le tout d’une approche monodimensionnelle centrée sur les épices.

Bouteille 33cl de Beerstorming. Dorée trouble, col fin blanc. Arôme au nez frais tirant plus vers le citronnée que l’orange. Sorte de thé vert citronnelle arrivent en rétro-nasal. Palais est terreux, note persistante de levure avec une approche malt pils. Amertume versant sur les agrumes plus que sur l’orange. Le tout semble fortement centré sur un houblonné noble, herbacé. Ok mais très confus.

Bouteille 33cl de Beerstorming. Trouble orange, col crémeux blanc-cassé. Arôme au nez fruité de goyave, lé rétro verse vers un léger thé un peu terreux, difficile de dire vraiment le profil de Rooibos, presque umami, terre mouillée. Palais est herbacé, feuilles de thé, relevé par le tropical de la goyave avec une certaine épaisseur de bouche. Effervescence est haute, malt est basique virant sur le pils cara, sec sur la fin maintenu par une amertume noble ajoutant qcq pointes de citronné.

Draft tasting glass @ brewery. Hazy bright golden, creamy white head. Nose is weird oily almost hospital smoke, stale & very weak USA C hops in the back (Citra & Centennial were used). Taste is oily plastic smoked, low chemical smoke, plastic smoked tea, weird oily banana, barely any C hops. End result painfully lacks a body & content like their other beers, at least the tea adds some flavours & mouthfeel to it even if the smoke is not optimal. C hops are present in far, far too low quantities. I liked this one the most out of the 6 sampled during this visit.

Draft tasting glass @ brewery. “Brown imperial pils” is just a doppelbock as far as I know, still an extremely rare style for a Belgian brewery. The few that I know are safe for one all for the export market. This one goes far outside the style by featuring Jamaican pepper & lemon peel if I remember correctly. Dark amber, creamy tanned head. Nose is akin to a weird stale bock with herbal aromatics and perfume, old stale leaves bock profile. Taste is herbal potpourri and bark, unpleasantly bitter, if this is the Jamaican pepper, it did this beer no favours, tree oil sap taste, herbal flat bitter leaves, oily bark & office furniture. Body is flat, oily with low carbonation. It carries notes of a stale bock oddly despite being new with a very unpleasant spice & malt bitterness, not a fan. It lacks carbonation.

Draft tasting glass @ brewery. Hazy orange with visibly little carbonation, just a few loose bubbles. Nose is rotting forest fruit compote, overly watery, stone fruit & some honey, fruit profile seems to be spoiled. Taste is a bit better, fruit is less rotting, you get some more peach & apricot compote taste which is the guava I suppose upfront but the whole is very watery, lacking body and carbonation, finish carries some rooibos which is fine. Body is pretty much flat & very watery. This lacks prober body & carbonation necessary to work.

One of the innumerable spiced ’laboratory beers’ by this unusual brewing project in Brussels, an unfiltered amber lager spiced with pasilla (dried chilaca) chili, coriander and marjoram and apparently deemed fit enough to make it into distribution outside the brewery, as I bought this bottle at Deconinck. IBU says 25 on the bottle, but 30 on the website. Strong pressure on the bottle but no gusher. Initially very frothy, off-white, regularly shaped head, stabilizing to a medium thick, very moussy rim and stable islands of flat foam in the middle, crowning a clear, warm orange blonde beer, hinting at amber, with some minute dots of yeast here and there; turns a deeper, pure and hazy amber with sediment. Aroma of a lot of soapy coriander seed, butterscotch candy, caramel even, raw carrot, damp cloth, soggy chicken corn (as in some industrial lager), freshly baked cookies, paprika-flavored potato chips (I assume this vague spicy touch represents the pasilla chilis), dried red berries, warm toast, faint iron but hardly any recognisable marjoram. Spritzy, ’clean’ onset, overcarbonated even for a lager, minerally and numbing, souring an otherwise vaguely sweetish onset devoid of esters - this is indeed clearly a lager. Supple, smooth body thanks to a nutty and caramelly, very lightly toasted malt backbone, sweetish in a cereally, ’dim’ way but acquiring some more interesting toastedness in the end, yet refraining from mouth-filling bitterness and instead showing a certain metallic quality; eventually the spices show up, in the form of soapy coriander more than anything else, while the marjoram remains very limited, if not unnoticeable (except perhaps a vague retronasal herbal accent). The chilis shine in the very end, as a slightly heating, tingling and very pleasant spiciness during and after swallowing; hop bitterness is restrained as usual - and as expected from a beer carrying only 25 IBU. Juicy, nutty malt sweetishness lingers along with the chili warmth. I visited this brewery last summer and I must admit that the whole idea behind it is fascinating and very different from anything else in Belgium, to say the least; yet I found the different beers I was able to taste back then all lacking a bit in body, especially in the finish, seen the low doses of hops these guys apparently apply. I assume the aim is to put their impressive spice rack to full use - a recurring theme in their range, it seems, as this one too contains no less than three different spices. Coriander and chili are there, but the marjoram drowns a bit into the whole even in the ’bareness’ of a lager; I’m not sure if this is a bad thing, though, because all things considered, this beer has to be seen in its specific context, being ’spiced amber lager’ with all the features one would expect from this combination of words - and honestly, I cannot think of any other beer that fits that description, Belgian or not. Have a point for originality, but I am still waiting for the first big, full-bodied and properly hopped brew from them which rises above this new ’Brussels hype’ with all those new brewing initiatives there, fascinating as they may be. Not sure if this brewery can do it, but with this amount of enthusiasm, originality and - more than anything else - extreme prolificacy, it would be unfair to stop believing.