20 September 2024. At Gold, Ghent. Cheers to Maarten!

A: clear golden, stable, foamy, white head.
A: pineapple, bread dough, citrus zest, starch, jenever.
T: sweetish pineapple & mandarin, bread, yeast, clove.
F: floral hops, yellow fruits, citrus.
P: medium body, slick texture, soft carbonation.
Not bad, just inoffensive.

De Graal Tripel partially fermented with Gouyasse yeast - so in a certain sense a collab with Légendes, apparently an idea from a homebrewing friend of the brewer from the village of Maarkedal, hence the name. Bottle at Glengarry in Ghent. Thick and foamy, egg-white, stable, plaster-like lacing head, misty apricot blonde robe with visible sparkling and orangey glow. Aroma of unripe apricot, bread crust, cooked green cabbage hint, cold potato mash, dried flowers, coriander seed, raw broad beans, straw. Fruity onset but not exaggerated in sweetness, some banana mixed with peach and apple peel, sharpish carbonation; some honeyish sweetness of residual sugars hovering over a bread-crusty, slightly caramelly malt bed, adding a spicy coriander note in the end (though not too dominantly so) and some gently warming alcohol, before a long, earthy, floral hop bitterness sets in, lasting a bit longer than I was expecting, reinforced by typical De Graal yeast bitterness. Moderately hoppy tripel - just a tad more hoppy than average - with very classic, 20th-century De Graal profile, in spite of yeast from another brewery being used, but then the Légendes yeast is not the most outspoken one either so it does not really come as a surprise that there is no discernible Gouyasse character to be found here. Balanced and technically okay.

Tripel as it should be...