Bottle at Hops, Crewe. Pours a dark ruby with a thin scummy cream head and decent lacing. The aroma has raisins, caramel and malts. In the mouth it is basically sweet but with the merest trace of sharpness too. It has the usual Belgian hop and yeasty flavouring but also cherries and dark fruits with traces of molasses and alcoholic strength coming later leading to a somewhat fruity finish. This is a decent dubbel, but is a bit thin compared to the best of the style.

330ml bottle from DB Supermarket in Beernem. Pours a bright orange with a white head. Aromas & tastes of mango, citrus, grapefruit, marmalade & hops. Moderate body. Clean light bitter finish.

Disappearing, medium, off-white head over (cold)hazed pale golden beer. Peppery malt nose, faint banana,wheat, herbs & spices, mainly coriander. A tad sharpish in general. More of the same in the mouth. Demi-sec, dried cereal flour, later wetted. Herbs, coriander certainly, and wheat, just-not Weizen-like. Faint meaty ester, cooked ham with (also cooked) parsley. Finish displays something chemical: glue, solvent. Warming up, gets sugary sweet, and highlighting the coriander even more. Feels way more carbonated than it looks; wheatslickness, sticky; medium bodied maybe. Very, very average. As feared.

Huge fluffy head , fast dwindling over rather still, metallic golden beer. Very "beery" nose - pale malts, grassy hops; some fine greenery cereals. Cereals, faint toast, little bit grassy, hay. Pale and lightly toasted malts; dusty straw in the end. Misses almost any bitterness. Flat, almost undercarbonated, light, gristslick. Judas... from top to bottom... in fermentation... or in quality?

A complex history of takeovers and consolidations typifies the hypercommercial beer brands and that is no different for Grimbergen, originating as an abbey beer brand almost seven decades ago brewed by Maes, which fused with Alken thirty years later only to be taken over by Heineken another thirty years later. Narrowing down to this beer, the brand has been organising a hobby brewing contest for two years now, with the winner being granted the great advantage of having his winning recipe brewed at a larger scale - originally by the new microbrewery installed in the abbey itself, but now apparently by Alken-Maes (in practice this actually means Alken as Maes was closed already in 2003). This one contains the usual ingredients plus wheat malt and, alas, undefined 'spices' and poses as a light spring beer - ironically a very different beer from Grimbergen's original Optimo Bruno, which could be considered a much more classic spring beer in Belgium. Anyway, I digress: snow white, shred-lacing, medium thick, slowly opening but generally stable head on a crystal clear pale yellow blonde robe with 'metallic' brass tinge and disparate but continuous visible sparkling. Aroma of green pear, dried chervil, fresh cilantro, dried apple slices, soggy chicken grains, Aloe vera gel, unsugared bubblegum, that typical 'cooked cloth' smell of pasteurisation, 4-vinyl guaiacol (clove but stronger - too strong in fact), raw 'haricots verts', vegetable stock cubes, some background banana or banana bread, minerals. Fairly neutral onset in fact, industrial lager-like, with vague notes of green pear and unripe banana, moderately carbonated, with a kind of 'added' minerality running underneath; slick, 'glueish' mouthfeel, grainy and very thin but still 'beery', with the added spices creeping in - coriander seed, but also dried chervil, even dried basil and perhaps something very faintly minty. They are supposed to establish something 'floral' but the most floral element here is an admittedly confident floral hop bitterness drying the finish, while 'powdery' grainy elements remain. In its very base and seeing where it is brewed, this is not even the worst Grimbergen to date: it has this filtered and pasteurised industrial feel of course, but it also has a bittering hoppiness and distinct herbalness that set it a bit apart from every other Grimbergen I remember. Do not get all excited about it, but for a mass-produced, Heineken-owned 'macro' beer this could have been much worse. The question remains why it is called 'floral': this must have something to do with the herbs in the recipe - I am assuming the original hobby brewers effectively used dried flowers which would explain the aromas somewhat, but which ones? I guess we will never know.

Amber colour, hazy, large frothy head that stays long. Aroma is grassy and flowery hops, black pepper. Medium to heavy bitterness. Lively carbonation, medium body. Very good!