Dupont must have been the first brewery to make a case for creating a subcategory of 'strong saisons' with their Moinettes and Bons Voeux many a decade ago (Moinette Blonde dating back to the fifties even), but in spite of the 'saison revival' in Belgium of the past years, one does not often see this concept being explicitly advertised - so this Turbo by 't IJ, the great Amsterdam pioneer now owned by Moortgat, sparked my curiosity. Medium thick, frothy, snow white, slightly irregular, slowly breaking head on a misty golden blonde robe with khaki-ish tinge and some disparate bubbles here and there. Aroma of banana-flavoured bubblegum but not as exaggerated as I was fearing, pear, ripe apricot, wodka, brioche, candy apple, dry straw, white pepper, dried lemon thyme, rose petals, pineapple, crème anglaise, clove. Fruity onset, pear, pineapple and quite some banana, but again they somehow managed to restrain the isoamylacetate a bit, even though a bubblegummy touch is certainly there; sharpish but fine-bubbled, stingy carbonation, full but slick body. White-bready and cereally, simple pale malts 'amped' by white candi sugar like in any 'hypercommercial' tripel, but then gradually more spicy notes appear which I assume are meant to represent the 'saison' part: a bit black-peppery, with side notes of green bell pepper, clove and nutmeg, all very subtle though, both in aroma and in taste. Smooth finish, in all; there is a leafy, rooty hop bitter element in the tail, behaving more assertively and obstinately than I was expecting, but as I could have guessed from the start, this bitterness is of course partially due to alcohol as well, with this 'jenever'-like effect adding unpleasant wryness in the tail. In spite of its flaws, this is somewhat better than I was expecting (bearing IJ's present-day quality in mind) - but needless to say, we are still miles away from the Dupont examples I mentioned in the beginning of my review here. 'Miles' does not even cover it - 'light-years' seems more satisfying a term. In all: crude and boozy yet less harshly so than feared.

Tap at Loburg, Wageningen, The Netherlands. Pours amber, with limited white foam. Aroma is caramel, malty. Body and carbonation are average. Taste is fairly sweet. Final is average in intensity.

Blik 33cl thuis. Droog, yeasty, bittertonen, steenfruit, bloemig, wat citrustonen, witte peper, koriander, fruitig. (16-11-2025).

Can @ Shiphol airport. Easy going refreshing. Light in body but distinct malt flavor with a fine citric and pine hop flavor. Decent NA beer.

Can. Sure a nice alcohol free beer, piney, lightly grapefruity and not too malty or wort-like. Refreshing. 646412 251107

33cl bottle at a random bar in Valkenburg on 3rd November 2025. Clean golden body, thin white crust on top. Dry hop, bitter taste, nice take on the style, just a slight citrus leaning from the hop content.

On today's episode of "how come I've never had this before": bottle at home from Jumbo. Pours almost completely clear, darker, copperish golden with a lacing white head. Nose is a bit parfumey, showing notes of phenolics, floral character and herbal touches with a hint of oily grapefruit zest. Taste is similar, herbal, grassy, citric, fairly Belgian obviously it has a macro vibe to it, but not tragic. It's got a light to medium bitterness, the finish is a touch soapy, also peppery phenolic.

Hell hopfiger, mäßig hefig-fruchtiger Antrunk. Leicht herb, süffig, helles Malz, keine Bitterkeit. Konstante Aromatik, mittellanger Abgang, rund. 9/10/10/7/8/8