Bottle (from beergium)Pours amber with huge whiteish head. The head stays. Aroma is sweet, fruity, Belgian yeast, citrus, pears, caramel. Flavor is sweet and bitter, fruits, citrus, Belgian yeast, sugar, malt. Finish is citric-dry bitter. Alcohol is rather covered. Overall: very good.

02-11-16 // bottle at Le Bier Circus, Brussels. Orange coloured beer, small white head. Strong malt driven beer. Belgian yeasty. Nice long hop bitter finish with some herbal notes.

Bottle (from beergium). Pours dark brown with beige head. Aroma is cocoa, malt, roast. Flavor is sweet and bitter, roast, coffe, malt, cocoa beans, fruits, some apples. Finish is roast, cocoa. Overall: good.

Bottle, 330 ml from Beergium. Courtesy of and shared with JFK10000. Pours orange, medium white head. Fruity, caramel malty, yeasty, sweet. Creamy, smooth. Medium bodied. Better than expected, a pleasant surprise.

Found a bottle as a last one ( back of the fridge ) in a bar that wasn’t aware of the different versions. luck, I guess? Pours dark brown, very big white head. Smell is intense, roasty. Taste is roasted malts, some dark chocolate. dark fruits, indeed. very rich, yet a bit simple. Not silky, as I love in stouts, and has ( still) a certain level of bitterness I love in IPA’s, but not in stouts. A typical Belgian stout, of far above average quality, but Belgian stouts are in no way a match to what is being brewed in the rest of the world...

Very good, dense & fine yellowish-amberish head, leaving lace over clear copper beer, not very actively carbonated looking; Spicy nose, white candi sugar, herbs, ’hot’ yeast. Toasted malts, other grains, rootspices. Very toasted flavour. Again spicy and yeasty. Bitterness - spicy - overrules the obvious maltsweetness underneath. Hint of pineapple, orangepeel and scorched sugar. Not completely attenuated, strange for a tripel. Very slick, alcoholic. Yeah - another tripel if you want;

Very good, rather dense and stable yellow head over clear copper beer, medium carbonation. Explosion of New World hops at first, fruity, citrussy, bit of valerian. But rather volatile, dwindling. Bitter, lupuline, faintly citrussy. Sweet underbuild, gaining force warming up, whilst - again - the flavours start to fade; Bit lactic, buttermilk-like flavour. Rather light body, slight slickness. Resin remains in the aftertaste, not much else (a fruity impression excepted). Starts just fine, only to fade, fade...

American style IPA from this Belgian beer company, brewed at De Ranke and hopped with Chinook and the fashionable child of Simcoe called Mosaic. Quite a lot of pressure on the bottle upon opening, but no gusher. Thick ’papery’ lacing, moussy, egg-white head, slowly diminishing and breaking in the middle; hazy peach blonde colour with lively fizz, turning a much darker ochre-hued orange with sediment. Quite delicate and indeed very typical ’new IPA’ aroma of pink grapefruit flesh, fresh mandarin peel, guava or even strawberry, hints of spruce, rose petals, sweet onion, kiwano, green banana, a hint of candied lemon and even some isoamylacetate (bubblegum) giving away its ’Belgian-ness’ but actually camouflaging itself quite well within the sweet tropical fruit aromas of the hops, also some dank and old ’hop urine’, dried bread crumbs, white pepper, baker’s yeast. Sweet onset, that old banana ester again paired with hints of pineapple, sweet white grape and lychee, with a sourish yellow kiwi-like effect positioned against it; carbo is on the fizzy side but not too much for this style. Supple, lean body, pleasantly malt sweetish middle, very lightly caramelly with the initial fruitiness continuing and eventually blending with the fruitiness of the hops, which provide a range of lovely retronasal aromas (pink grapefruit, tangerine, some pine, some mango) as well as a spicy, resinous but not overly harsh bitterness in the final stage, drying and balancing out the initial sweetness successfully, though enough juiciness remains to keep drinkability at a very high level - seems more like a 5% ABV sessioner than a 6.5% ABV medium strength beer. Apart from the evident tropical fruitiness, there is something more herbal and ’green’ to this hop character as well (an obvious result of the dry-hopping). The banana ester is cleverly hidden behind a curtain of American hop fragrance, but it’s still there - though it remains about the only true Belgian feature I can find in this beer and it is cleverly hidden behind the New World hops curtain. NovaBirra finally deserves the ’Nova’ part in its name - at least in a Belgian context, since this type of beers is being brewed in the U.S. for thirty years now and even in the broader European context of today, this is nothing too remarkable; still I heartily welcome this type of ’internationally oriented’ beers onto the Belgian market and it remains, in all, a very elegant, highly quaffable and well-made IPA. Enjoyed it, especially after that awful Wilderen Kriek...