Bottle at home. A bit hazy orange color, medium to full sized white head. Not a lot of aroma. Flavor is malts, lightly white peppers, citrusy a bit, agian a peppery note, average to medium bitter. Decent body, firm carbonation. Okay.

One in a small series of honey beers commissioned by beekeepery Wallabieke in Buggenhout; like the regular beer in this series, simply called WallaBierke (which has been in existence since 2018), it was at least initially been brewed by a local microbrewery called Erneffen, which seems to have gone out of business meanwhile - which I assume explains why production of these beers has moved to other breweries meanwhile. If I am correctly informed, the regular WallaBierke is now brewed by BeerSelect, but this special Citriodora version, flavoured with lemon verbena, apparently comes from Jessenhofke now (this is explicitly mentioned on the label) so I guess the commissioning beekeeper should update the information on his website too. Anyway, now that we have this - as usual with these commissioned beers - overly elaborate story about brewing location out of the way, let's move on to the beer itself. Thick and frothy, tightly plaster-like lacing, eggshell-white, pillowy, tightly knit and stable head, misty peach-golden robe with ochre-ish tinge, cloudy and more orangey with sediment. Aroma of indeed very recognizable lemon verbena with annoyingly perfumey effect heavily hovering over impressions of old bread crust, unripe peach, dry straw, field flowers, oxidized apple slices turning brown, clear iron (as in: actual iron, very strongly confirmed by the 'hand test'), halfripe banana, clove, radish peel, raw parsnip, grass. Sweetishly fruity onset, a blend of banana, apple and slight pear flavours, quite sharply carbonated with nevertheless full, rounded body; fluffy, bready maltiness with a sharper grainy core and this unmistakable iron effect at its sides, carrying lemon verbena aromas retronasally though oddly much less strongly so than orthonasally and competing with quite heavy clove-like phenols (4-vinyl-guaiacol) and aspects of damp straw, raw turnip and bitter garden weeds, the latter connected to a late but quite leafy hop bitter element which acts as a much-needed drying force in the finish. The alcohol warms in the background without truly revealing itself, while flowery and herbal flavours, the latter becoming a bit soapy too, linger about. This leafy hop bitterness fortunately lasts equally long, otherwise I am not sure if I would have been able to finish the bottle. Perfuming beers with things like lavender, juniper berry or indeed lemon verbena has never been my cup of tea - this one does just that; adding iron to enhance head stability so that your beer actually smells like iron pipes, is never a good thing - yet this one does just that; and generally adding up to the heap of flavoured tripels is hardly original in 2022 - and indeed, this one does just that. Not my cup of beer, but I have no doubt that this guy's honey is excellent and had I been a keen honey consumer, I would still bother to drive to Buggenhout to get a few jars. I would not buy any of the other WallaBierkes, though.

Fles 33cl in Lochem. Zoet, rietsuiker, hop (Pilgrims, Goldings, Challenger), redelijk kruidig, orange peel, licht plakkerig, bittertonen, citrus, honingtoets, licht yeasty. (25-5-2022).

Sampled @ Zythos Beer Festival 2022. A hazy golden beer with a white head. Aroma of pale malt, some salt. Taste of mid sweet pale malt, ripe yellow golden fruits, yeast.

Sampled @ Zythos Beer Festival 2022. A clear yellow golden beer. Aroma of herbal pale malt, grains. Taste of herbs, green plants, pale malt.

Trockener, mild kräutriger Beginn. Leichte Süße, mild herb, unspannend aber rund und gelungen. 8/10/9/9//9

Heller Beginn, in dem das hinzugefügte Salz nicht zum Tragen kommt. Wenig kräutrig, milde Herbe, unnötig. 10/8/7/7//7

Appearance: cloudy orangeish amber, moderate off-white head of medium retention. Aroma: good esters, candy, dried fruit. Taste: medium sweet, fruity. Apricot, candy, vinous notes. Low to light bitterness. Mouth feel: medium body, average carbonation. Overall: not exactly a quad. A decent Belgian strong ale.