0,75l bottle from Eurospin Chianchitta, enjoyed @ Siké Holiday Home. Pours cloudy yellow with a medium head. Aroma is sweet malts with esters. Flavor is sweet malts, esters, alcohol, hops. Not bad.

Ce n'est pas une IPA très inspirée que nous propose la brasserie John Martin. Pourtant avec English Kent Goldings, Citra et Cascade, on pouvait s'attendre à mieux. Mais je pense qu'il doit y avoir près de 98 % d'English Kent Goldings et 1% de Citra et 1 % de Cascade car c'est une amertume simple et sans réel intérêt que l'on retrouve à la dégustation. Il parait également qu'il y a un houblonnage à cru...pas marquant. Sur le visuel nous sommes sur un blond doré limpide avec une fine effervescence soutenue et une mousse blanc cassé crémeuse d'1 cm. Au nez, cela ne sent pas réellement l'IPA avec le malt qui s'exprime avant tout avec, en complément une pointe de zest d'orange et d'herbes. En bouche, si l'amertume est relativement présente (IBU de 55), celle-ci est simple et sans grand intérêt. L'ensemble est plutôt bien équilibré avec un alcool à 6,5 % honnête, mais les arômes sont peu attrayants, simples (reprenant ceux présents au nez) et l'amertume quelque peu agressive n'est pas des plus passionnantes. Corpulence et longueur sont moyenne pour une IPA qu'il vaut mieux oublier.

33cl bottle from Carrefour Market Cours St. Michel in Brussels. F: huge, egg-white, long lasting. C: deep gold, light hazy. A: malty, vaguely fruity, bit caramel, banana, apples, honey, bit herbal. T: medium to full malty base, banana, apples, bit caramel, pear, bready, bubblegum touch, bit herbal, nice balanced bitterness, medium carbonation, better than previous version Martin's Pale Ale, enjoyed.

New label, new recipe and a new executing brewery, in this case apparently disclosed by John Martin (which is very atypical for them): the classic Martin's Pale Ale, a big hit in the sixties and seventies when it was still a near-alias of the original English Bulldog by Courage, has apparently been redesigned last year, so I guess this warrants a review... Bottle from the Delhaize supermarket in Lokeren. Very thick, egg-white, foamy, pillowy, frothy, stable head on a crystal clear 'metallic' orange blonde beer (a pale amber almost) with strong visible sparkling; turns misty and a tad deeper amber further on. Aroma - after the carbon dioxide 'sting' has faded - of burnt sugar, dry cookies, ripe banana, fried apple, iron, honey, caramel, pear, petrichor, rubber, dust, grass. Prickly onset with - unsurprisingly seen the looks of it - numbing overcarbonation, adding a sour aspect and strong minerality, but also accentuating the iron element; fruity notes of ripe pear, banana and red apple are almost pushed away by it. Harsh overcarbonation continues through a cookie- and sweet bread-like maltiness with vague peanutty edges but also something bubblegummy from the isoamylacetate, while a honeyish sweetness also remains; ends with grassy and floral hop bitter notes which gently linger, along with remaining banana ester and residual sweetness, while the malts unfortunately fade away all too quickly for this style of beer. Not sure what to think of this remake of what once was a standard EPA: the banana ester sweetness and fruitiness has turned this old familiar classic into something more 'Belgian', but admittedly there is only a thin line between classic English pale ale and 'spéciale belge'; this one sure feels like a typical 20th-century 'spéciale belge' to me, but I would rather have had it less sweet, less metallic, cleaner and more malt-forward: thàt would have been an actual improvement of what was essentially a boring standard ale. Not too impressed, but I must admit that I was expecting even worse, considering the name of John Martin being attached to it.

Bottled. Deep golden colour with a mediumsized fluffy white head. Aroma is yeast, some bananas, some peach and mild tropical fruits with mild alcohol tones. Flavour is peach, alcohol, spicy and some mild grassy and mild toffeeish tones.

Blik gedeeld met Roelzie. Het is een goudgeel bier met een volle witte schuimkraag. Het heeft een aroma van citrus en zeepsop. De smaak is moutig, kruidig en citrus achtig.

The ordinary Belgian blonde in a series of new abbey beers by John Martin (likely brewed at Swinckels but who knows), dedicated to the Maredret abbey in Wallonia, northwest of Dinant. Even the famed Hildegard von Bingen is thrown in as a commercial asset, held responsible for the use of spices and spelt (which were already common in beer before she came around, but anyway)... Sounds ominous enough to me. Thick, foamy, yellowish egg-white, pillowy, regular and dense, hardly lacing head resting stable on an initially near-clear, deep apricot-tinged pale orange blonde beer with minute dots of yeast everywhere (usually a sign of ageing) and fine strings of sparkling, turning misty and deeper orangey peach with sediment. Aroma of jute bags, old juniper berries (actually used) and old cloves (dito), spiced cookies, cheese crackers, ferrous spring water, cured meat hint (4-vinyl-guaiacol, strongly enhanced by the added clove), raw parsnip, persimmon, hints of cinnamon, egg yolk and dust. Spritzy onset, lots of minerally sparkling, sweet-fruity notes of persimmon, fig, banana and apricot with added white candi sugar syrup sweetness - creating a light but somewhat 'hollow' effect in an otherwise rounded, cereally, cracker- and peanut-like malt profile with that typical spelt earthiness and spiciness coming up clear enough; lots of added and phenolic spiciness on top with clove being recognizable because of the 4-vinyl-guaiacol effect but juniper berries quickly following suit, with herbaceous, 'botanical' and slightly astringent effects, the latter amplified by ongoing (over)carbonation. Liquorice and cinnamon notes faintly lurk in the background, hops appear late to the party but fortunately manage to add a leafy dryness in the very end, alongside something metallic; honeyish sweetness lingers but a bit less annoyingly so than feared, while the minerality of this overcarbonation almost seems to get the last word. Somewhat saison-esque in the most classical sense of the word thanks to the spices and the spelt, but basically just a sweet-and-spiced Belgian blonde; I have to admit, however, that I was expecting something much cleaner, sweeter and industrial, so all things considered (including my low expectations), this is not too bad after all. Whether it is good enough to make me put my trust in the rest of this new range, is a totally different question, though. In any case you will really have to like spiced Belgian ales if you want to appreciate this one... In short: not good, but less bad than expected.