THT June at Kwartje HQ. Black with offwhite head. Sweet roasted chocolate malts, grapefruit peel. Moderate sweet and bitter. Medium body and soft carbonation. --- Beer merged from original tick of Kerel Pink Imperial on 11 Jun 2018 at 09:30 - Score: 7

VBDCK's new summer beer, essentially their Saison flavoured with honey and - apparently in order to appeal to the Dutch market they are trying to conquer - atypically not filled in the eccentric VBDCK bottles, but in cans, still unusual for artisanal beers in Belgium. Can straight from the brewery. Tightly papery lacing, medium thick, egg-white head showing some disparate gaps in the middle but retaining well, over a misty, bit beige-tinged peach blonde beer. Aroma of ripe mandarin, starfruit, pear, aromatic acacia honey, ripe pineapple, freshly cut red apple, unripe green melon, bread crumbs, sparsely sprinkled lemon zest, freshly baked ginger cookies, fresh camomile, cornbread, vague turnip earthiness faraway in the background. Crisp, quite bright onset, refreshingly fruity with impressions of green banana, starfruit, unripe pear and quite pronounced red apple, sweetish but not sweet and with a fresh sourish accent to it, lively carbonated without being numbing; supple, lean body, restrainedly bready, juicy, with minerally side notes (as in mineral water) as well as this sourish touch weirdly persisting, though remaining refreshing. The honey adds little sweetness (none expected anyway, as it ferments out completely and only 3% has been added here) but evokes a retronasal aroma of fresh camomile, sweetclover and acacia blossoms - even orange blossom to a certain extent. Ends as crisp and refreshing as it began, with a late yet effective, floral and eventually mildly spicy hop bitterness, which becomes notable more outspoken after swallowing and eventually dries the finish adequately - the intention to present a light-footed, elegant and highly quenching summer beer has been very well achieved. Different, nice and subtle, this may well be this rather unusual brewery's best beer so far; I already held their saison in relatively high esteem at least compared with their other beers, as simple, utterly classic and straightforward as it may be, but the honey really lightens that beer's basic features with more subtlety and elegance, adding a fragile delicacy to it. Very enjoyable in this time of the year. Cheers Charlotte!

Bottle shared at THT July. Dark brown with dark beige head. Strong raspberries, roast, old coffee, light cocoa, soft grass, herbs, cooked raspberries. Medium sweet, bitter and just medium sour raspberry touch. Over medium bodied.

6 3 7 3 15Bottle shared at THT June. Brown with a ring tan head. Aroma of red berries, raspberry, caramel, malt and light roast. Flavour is moderate sweet and bitter. Medium bodied with soft carbonation.

Hazy dark orange colour with big fluffy head. Aroma has some yeast and straw and is generally quite sweet. Lively carbonation. Flavour starts quite yeasty and becomes sweeter and sweeter.

Towering, dense yellow-cream head, slowly receding over deep reddish brown beer. Very little nose. Bit of chocolate, hardboard, liquorice. Sourish hint at lactic acid? The thick head preventing more? Bitterish liquorice, woody, a faint fruity finish (raspberry) and a lot of chocolat. As a raspberry ganache praline. Sourishness more pronounced in the flavour. Very slick, even oily, good carbonation, feels rich somehow. Not bad in the end. Just this useless blurb.

Small cream head over low carbonation foxy light-brown beer. Perfumey, marzipan nose, almonds, cyanogroups. Bitterish-bready, with a lot of underlying maltsweetness. Again continental hops in huge and ineffective doses. Finishes again perfumey - almondey. Bitterish caramel warming up. Light body, low carbonation, dull. Seems somehow fermentation fell flat. In any case, substandard. It's not dark, let alone IPA. 6/4/6/2/10

Very good & dense, light-yellowish head, quite stable over hazy dark-yellow beer. Spicy nose, garden herbs, creamy; grassy pale malts. Quite bitter, EU hops (over)load, spicy & herbal. 22 IBU seems low for this, even for a blonde. Finish is pretty peppery. In the end, the bitterness lessens. Creamy, velvety (oats!) MF despite good carbonation. Gristslickness. Decent blonde, not really special. I assume the Strikes have a meaning, but I haven't caught on yet. Blonde shower??? Yikes! 6/4/7/313

Bottle at home. Almost clear light golden with white head. Quite grainy with pils malts, light bread, hazelnuts. Soft spicy yeast, light fruity hops with some grass, tangerine oil, grapefruit. There’s some weird bitter dusty herbs and even veggies towards the finish. Just medium sweet and over medium bitter. Medium bodied with quite some carbonation. Not too bad, though not even beginning to come close to the De La Senne I had earlier tonight.