Almost clear golden colour, white foam. Very sweet and boozy, almost syrupy with citrussy and hints of grapefruit. Strong, sweet, boozy but also hoppy.

Very good white head over coldhazed golden beer. Rather neutral nose (for such a strong beer!). There is lupulin obviously; vegetable frying oil, bit grapefruitpeel. Sweet, white grapejuice with a sugaroverload - probably natural, but all the same... Again frying oil and sugared pickles; further a good dose of lupulin, giving an undistinct bitter flavour. Viscous, almost cloying; yet good carbonation. Overdose - but not from the hops. Imagine white grapejuice from the bottle with a lupulin injection. I blame the dextrin malt.

New pastry sour by Totem (their third one in this style if I am not mistaken), this time with ingredients one tends to associate more closely with pastry sour than, say, carrot or rhubarb. Thanks Erwin for the can! Thinnish and open, loosely structured, snow white, unstable and dissolving head over a hazy warm apricot blonde beer with pale orangey tinge. Aroma of very strong ripe banana and even Pisang Ambon banana liqueur, also very strong green kiwi, Key lime pie, limoncello without the alcohol, vanilla beans, honeydew, meringue, sweetened pineapple yoghurt, cake dough, homemade lemonade. Opens with that typical pastry sour combo of very sweet and lactic sour, extremely fruity with that ‘mushy’ sweetness of banana dominating – yet gradually replaced by a strong green kiwi flavour matching well with the underlying lactic acidity; guava, granadilla and pineapple impressions join in, through a medium carbonated, very velvety and rounded body, built round a sweet doughy malt core and carrying retronasal added vanilla in its tail. The lactic sourness is very yoghurty and fruity, simple and efficient in cutting through the sweetness – but alas the sweetness appears too strong and dominates a bit too much in the finish, where this sticky banana liqueur effect is the last impression. I still have to make up my mind whether I actually like pastry sours (and its offspring smoothie sours) or not – this kind of concoctions is not entirely my cup of tea, but I cannot deny that this is technically very well done, if the sweetness is a bit much for me; it is also the umpteenth proof that Totem really is a cutting edge craft brewing business in Flanders, where the overwhelming majority of brewers stick to local 20th-century traditions. Injecting a totally uncompromising global craft colour in this traditional culture, or putting it next to it at least, has always been Totem’s core business and Klaas and Liesbeth still prove that their inventivity in this field remains limitless.

0.33 l can from 'Etre Gourmet', best before December 2028. Slightly hazy, golden with a thin, quickly collapsing, white head. Sweetish, intensely fruity-resiny, slightly boozy aroma of candied orange, pine, some honey and a touch of grapefruit. Very sweet, fairly fruity-resiny, slightly and not overly boozy taste of honey, pine, grapefruit, candied orange, sultanas and lemon, followed by a medium long, gently bitter finish. Just above medium-bodied, gently effervescent mouthfeel, soft carbonation. Massive beer, somewhere between an American Blond Barley Wine and a Quintuple IPA. Very intense, super hoppy (300 IBU!), surprisingly light-bodied for such a high abv and not as boozy as expected. Very well done!

8/IV/23 - 33cl can from Geers (Oostakker), shared @ holiday home (France), BB: XII/2023 (2023-305)

Cloudy orange beer, practically no head, looks like a glass of juice. Aroma: sweet impression, fruity notes, mango, papaya. MF: lively carbon, medium body. Taste: bitter start, some tropical fruits, more bitterness, some citrus, a bit dank. Aftertaste: fruity, hoppy, resinous, good bitterness, citrus, grapefruit, a bit of a hop burn, nice dry finish with some fruity notes.

Can from Beers@Moviefun. Cloudy orange, thinning, off-white head. Aroma of mango juice & pulp, apricot, plum, multi-fruit drink. Taste has sweet mango & apricot along bitter citrus peel in a dough-malty, quite yeasty body. Bitter, dry finish with resinous hops, yeast and mango, somewhat unpleasant. Medium body, slick texture, average carbonation. Quite heavy on the mango, lacking drinkability. Not Totem's finest unfortunately.

Dark amber colour, beige foam. Sweet, malty, smoked notes, leather, some fruitiness. Good.

Lci & taster. Too alcoholic, bit flat and ba doesn't really come through.

Pours a medium dark amber-brown, surprisingly clear. Small, stable white head. Scent is mildly showing it's age ( this beer was originally brewed for one of my 10k beers, which was an Icebock of this one. However, I never tried this one fresh, and decided for whatever reason to age all my bottles of Ymir basebeer) , but dried fruits are very recognizable, whiff of caramel, fairly complex dark breadyness as well. very vineous, I could be tricked to think this was aged on red wine barrels for sure. Taste is showing a surprising amount of bitterness, over a fairly thin body - both are surprising elements compared to my expectations. High to very high carbo, still very vineous, as it's got some acidity just like a wine does - it's not at all a sour beer though. Shame for the overcarbonation, otherwise a more than fair basebeer - yet so very different to what I expected. These could take a few more years, I reccon !