77ships (14506) reviewed Sweet Alma from Tartaruga Fine Brewing 8 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
330 ml. bottle. BBF 10/11/16 (quite strict for a Belgian beer). Hazy bright sparkling golden, creamy faintly off-white head. Nose is big on BE yeast, sweet banana, yeasty sweetish bread, something faintly green bitter but BE yeast fluffy sweetness rains supreme. Taste is interesting fluffy big white bread, yeast but cleaner & fluffier than in the nose, faintly floral, almost fine pine needles behind the banana sweetness, BE yeast, low white pepper. Body is fluffy white bread & banana. Interesting beer, nose is quite excessive on the yeast, taste is yeast but very clean, fruit, low lemon, banana, bread, perfectly developed, hops are barely there with mainly white pepper, faint pine needles. Heavy bitterness from the description doesn’t add up but it feels like a wonderful display of BE yeast. As a Belgian Strong Ale this makes perfect sense but as a hoppy brew even in a De Ranke sense it doesn’t make much sense. I don’t get USA hops at all in here, I like it but less than the other Tartaruga beers so far, it is oddly off from its apparent intent.
madmitch76 (40452) reviewed Simply Rossa from Tartaruga Fine Brewing 9 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5
21st January 2017
Very hazy deep amber - brown beer, good cream colour head. Palate is light, dry and finely minerally crisp. Smooth but dry malts, mildly sweet, light tangy caramel. Mild pine and ripe citrus, lesser ripe fruits. Dry finish. Okay, not very IPA like.
tderoeck (22711) reviewed Sweet Alma from Tartaruga Fine Brewing 9 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
Imported from my RateBeer account as Tartaruga Sweet Alma (by Tartaruga Fine Brewing):
Aroma: 8/10, Appearance: 4/5, Taste: 8/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 15/20, MyTotalScore: 3.8/5
21/I/17 - 33cl bottle from Geers (Oostakker), shared @ post-DvdK-opening-tasting - BB: 10/XI/18 (2017-75)
Clear blond beer, small creamy white head, pretty stable, bit adhesive. Aroma: sweet, little fruity, very yeasty, marijuana, bit herbal, bit hoppy. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: pretty bitter start, very medicinal, bit fruity, hoppy, very bitter. Aftertaste: bit herbal, bit fruity, grassy, some apricots, some marijuana, pretty bitter, grassy.
Gyllenbock (17517) reviewed Simply Rossa from Tartaruga Fine Brewing 9 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
Bottle from Beergium, bought in January 2017. A bit hazy amber with a large fluffy head. Aroma of malt, caramel, hops and grapefruit. Similar taste. The body was medium as was the bitterness. A good one.
Gyllenbock (17517) reviewed Sunny Baia from Tartaruga Fine Brewing 9 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
Bottle from Beergium. A refreshing and easy to drink one with hops, tropical fruit and some bread. The body was on the light side and the finish rather dry. Quite good.
Leighton (34941) reviewed Simply Rossa from Tartaruga Fine Brewing 9 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8
Bottle at home in London - sourced from Beergium. Pours clear copper with a creamy, frothy off-white head. The aroma holds piney hops, lightly toasted wholegrain bread, some dried berries, citrus rind. Light-medium sweet flavour with restrained hop character, mellow lightly toasted, dried malts, some further relaxed pine, grains, dried citrus fruits. Medium bodied with average carbonation. Pretty clean in the finish, somewhat dry, with light bitter citrus rind and pine, further lightly toasted pale malts. Quite enjoyable and very drinkable, if a bit restrained.
lore (7878) reviewed Simply Rossa from Tartaruga Fine Brewing 9 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
hazy brownish amber colour, one inch dense yellowinsh head; aroma of tropical fruits, some grapefruit, piney and celery notes, as well as bread; perfectly balanced bittersweet taste with celery, tropical fruits, biscuits and some orange zest oils; great IPA
lore (7878) reviewed Sunny Baia from Tartaruga Fine Brewing 9 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
hazy golden colour, large, though not too stable and dense off-white head; aroma of grapefruit, mango, peach, some pine resiny, floral, biscuity and grassy notes, maybe some dill, too; taste is similar to the aroma with berry notes, too; excellent!
TDA (6957) reviewed Sunny Baia from Tartaruga Fine Brewing 9 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
At a tasting, thanks, almost no head, cloudy deepish orange color, aroma of peach and citrus with greenish notes and roots, fruity bready flavor, light herbal bitterness. Nice.
Alengrin (11609) reviewed Simply Rossa from Tartaruga Fine Brewing 9 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
Another new Tartaruga beer, something I meet with enthusiasm. Bottle from Beergium. Thickly ’papery’ lacing, densely moussy but regular, off-white head with good retention, remaining closed most of the time, crowning a hazy copper coloured beer with maroon reddish hue. Lovely and very elegant aroma of fresh passion fruit (though perhaps a tad less exuberant than one would expect from a New Zealand hop profile), rambutan, fresh toast, roasted pine nuts, pink grapefruit, the bitter white underside of orange peel, chestnut, cedar wood, sweet potato, soap, fresh red raspberries, old cloves, dry tree branches, salsify, straw, tonic water, wormwood, strawberry wine, rosé champagne, radish. Crisp, fruity, lively onset, restrainedly sweetish with a sourish edge, hinting at red apple peel, dried mango and passion fruit but all rather subdued and clean, in a finely but adequately carbonated, lambrusco-like physical environment; smooth, lightly soapy mouthfeel. Nutty and eventually toasted malts make up the middle phase, restrainedly caramelly sweetish at first but shifting towards a mild bitterness in the end, supporting a much stronger, spicy, resinous hop bitterness with floral and grapefruity qualities, releasing some subtle hints of tropical fruit and (more so) pine retronasally as well as establishing a long-lasting, peppery bitterness coating the back of the mouth and throat, but still remaining fairly gentle and very elegant. Elegance is key here: as with their Super Fresca, Tartaruga manages to present us with a true gem, not overdone like many other new IPAs but excelling in moderation and utmost finesse, completely free of errors. Lovely beer in which all components are brilliantly played out against each other. I’m a fan of this brewery and I hope much more is to come (they are already in the process of finishing their fourth beer now, apparently). As for style: IPA for sure, but a ’red IPA’ like many American craft breweries do; I could be mistaken but I suspect this is the first of this particular subkind in Belgium and I, for one, welcome it heartily, as it perfectly balances the inherent toasted malt character of a beer of this colour and style with a delicately aromatic hop character. Big cheers to Tartaruga - I even like the name.