Tasted as a test brew long before the opening of this new Waasland brewery, which has been founded by a family regionally renowned for its history in fine meats. They tried out many different beer style recipes in their long preproduction phase, only a few of which materialized now, making use of the old brand name ’Kerel’ which has been used by the original, historical brewery Verbeeck-Back, from its beginnings in 1867 till its demise in 1966. None of the current beers is an imitation of the original range, but it is claimed that old bottles were found in the remainders of the original brewery from which yeast was revived with which these newly released, ’non-historical’ Kerels are made... Anyway, this particular one is among the few beers they tried out long before the brewery opened, but in its preproduction phase, this was a gushing, infected, even vomit-smelling mess of a beer - so I guess it is only fair to re-rate it now that it has gone commercial. Still quite a lot of pressure on the bottle, but no more gushing so this issue has clearly been solved. Medium thick, egg-white, very stable, creamy head over an initially clear, pure orangey amber coloured beer with some lone bubbles of fizz here and there. Aroma of mouldy peaches, egg yolk, redcurrant, moist peanuts, overripe red apple, wet white pepper, sourish old sweat, damp haystacks, nutmeg, hints of gooseberries, ginger, some banana, fermenting tree leaves, spoiled lemon, cooked white cabbage, some faint young ’jenever’ and still those urine- and even vomit-like hints lurking ominously in the background, yet luckily a lot more subtle than in its test brew phase. Spritzy, estery onset, overcarbonated even for a bi�re de garde, minerally, souring, with a red apple- and redcurrant-like main flavour, a bit of the old banana ester added yet subtly so; more sourish than sweetish, in all. Slick, smooth mouthfeel in spite of the overcarbonation, superficially nutty malt middle with grainy edges, a tad caramelly at a certain point, leading to a herbal, mildly earthy finish, floral and very gently spicy hop bitterishness adding some dryness to an otherwise ongoing malty and estery juiciness. The alcohol provides a faint ’jenever’-like afterwarmth - but it should not be noticeable at all at 7% ABV... I fail to understand why this beer had a vomit-like odour in its aroma in its preproduction phase and now that it has gone commercial, they still haven’t managed to rule out this foul stench completely, though admittedly this has clearly been cleaned up and has evolved for the better. Still, not a very pleasant beer, the infectious sourishness piercing through the whole and the overcarbonation confirming that; conceptually speaking, I do not get the idea of presenting the Belgian consumer with a bière de garde at all either: isn’t this bringing water to the sea, considering how these bland French bières de garde are nearly always attempts at being as Belgian as possible? The average local consumer has probably never heard of "bière de garde" and the connoisseur probably doesn’t really care about it... Weird concept, not very well executed, sorry guys but this does not even deserve the 3/5 threshold for me personally. That said, I wonder what the average (northern) French consumer would think of it...