Liquorice-flavoured green (!) Gose - never thought I'd say this about a green beer, but this looks relatively harmless after that blue Soledad thing from the same brewery... Thanks Johan for sharing. Thin, lightly lacing, opening, snow white head over a grass green, hazy beer, like the content of a pond teeming with green algae. Aroma indeed breathes a lot of sweet liquorice, next to hints of lemon candy, sourdough, wakame, honey, tulips, salted cucumber. Sour onset in a clean, straightforward way, gherkin and green gooseberry notes, lime, unripe banana, light saltiness (green seaweed), softish carbo, very soapy-wheaty middle with cucumber, lime and eventually sweet, spicy liquorice impressions, dryish yoghurty lactic acidity, hint of soapy coriander. Weirdass Gose if you ask me and not just because of the colour... I have nothing against craft beer experiments, on the contrary, but this one, even if perfectly quaffable, takes the combining of flavours a bit too far for me.

Russian wheat IPA with lychee and blue tea - I though the 'blue' aspect was merely metaphorical, until the brewer poured it from a can in front of me at Leuven Innovation Beer Festival. Moussy, snow white, bubbly, opening head over - I kid you not - a deep and pure violet blue beer, hazy and more deeply purplish with sediment, looking like a beer that would be poured in an alien cantina in a Star Wars movie... Aroma of soapy wheat, violets, dough, cloves, hints of liquorice, apple, chalk - but nothing even remotely IPA-like. Sweetish onset, apple and a touch of blueberry, green banana, very soapy wheatiness, sourish undercurrent, mellow, with a floral finish (I can't get blue violets out of my head here) with a chalky touch as well as a soft hop bitterness - yet so soft that it fails to lend the finish sufficient body. Washes away easily like a witbier or a wheat ale, but I get nothing here that reminds me of IPA and the lychee is all but lost in this thin, utterly bizarre concoction. Why not use some tropically scented New World hop to evoke lychee in an indirect way? Anyway: it apparently takes experience with over 6000 beers to encounter my first really blue one (I had a handful of green ones but never actually blue) so points for originality, but looks aren't everything and pure flavour-wise, this is at least 'untrue to style'... Poor apart from its spectacular looks, a gimmick without further importance.

Russian barleywine, sampled from a can at LIBF. Egg-white, dense, moussy head, creamy but quickly opening in the middle, lacing in shreds over a hazy copper-tinged amber coloured beer. Condense, 'praline'-like nose, marzipan, Grand Marnier, marmalade, orange zest, sweetbread, mandarin flesh, candied cherries, rum. Candied sweet onset, candied orange peel, candied cherries, yellow raisin, medium carb but oily, vinous mouthfeel; caramelly and bread crust-like maltiness, thick but less sweet than expected based on the nose, with the halva adding a bready quality to it, very agreeable; long warming finish, orange liqueur and amaretto, with light spicy notes and well-fitting, mellow hop bitterishness. Very interesting and delicious barleywine from a somewhat unlikely place, Russia harbours a lot of fascinating craft beer secrets these days, it seems.