6.5

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8

At Kerstbierfestival 2016. Thnx for sharing ! Pours clear, darkamber to brown. Small white head; Smell is sharp, bit malty. Some spices. Taste is sharp, spiced. Bit sweet. OK .

8

Me nog eens aangenaam laten verrassen door de patron. Winterbier van de maand. Lichte zuren, honingsmaken, vol en rond.

6.5

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7

33 cl bottle. Pours sweet and toaasted malty. Sweet, caramelish. Sweet malty. Slight herbal. Dry and bitter.

6.8

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7

Bottle sampled at Essen Christmas Beer Festival ’16. Hazy brown with a cream head. Aroma of malt, caramel, nutty notes and overripe dark fruits. Flavour is above moderate sweet and moderate bitter. Medium bodied with soft carbonation.

6.3

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 6

[Thank you for sharing!][330 ml. bottle sampled @ O.B.E.R. Kerstbierfestival 2016] Dark brown amber, tanned head. Nos is very boozy, sugar, cough syrup, alcoholic licorice. Taste is sweet, overly sweet, thin cough syrup, herbal, plastic, sugar, cereal, overly medicinal & sweet. Thin, herbal boozy medicinal body. Expected more, not a fan.

6.9

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5

33 cl bottle. Pours clear and golden deep amber with a small tan head. Aroma is roasted malty and breadish, slight spiced. Sweet, toasted and caramelish malty. Bitter and roasted malty. Caramelish and slight minerals finish.

7.8

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8

Donkerbruin bier met weinig schuim. Smaak is krachtig en licht zoet met iets van karamel, bittere chocolade en bessen. Smaak blijft mooi lang hangen.

6.5

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 7

New winter ale from this brewery, with frothy, initially quite thick, very moussy and dense, pale greyish beige head leaving some lacing here and there; hazy deep brown-bronze colour with burgundy hue, dark but translucent. Aroma of old chocolates, toffee, hint coffee grounds, candied fig, lots of clove-like phenols, sour berries (did they use those buckthorn berries here again?), dried banana, forest floor with dried tree leaves or even dried mushrooms, some freshly fermented farmland underneath, brown rum, orange peel, caramelized brown sugar, dry cookies soaked in sugared tea, ginger, coriander seed (no surprise), slight iron, toasted bread, cooked salsify. Fig, some banana and apricot sweetness in the onset surrounded by elderberry - or indeed perhaps buckthorn berry - sourishness for balance, medium carbo, ’full’ but slick and soft mouthfeel, actually feeling a little bit on the thin side for a beer carrying 9% alcohol. Bready, slightly nutty malt sweetness in the middle with residual brown sugar sweetness on top but not cloying and countered by that berry-like sourishness silently continuing till the finish; soapy coriander quite strongly coats the back of the mouth but the end phase also harbors a toasted, almost coffeeish malt bitterness (Scotch-like), along with an earthy yeastiness (especially in the end), a pleasantly spicy hop bitter accent and an ’afterglow’ of warming, rum-like alcohol. In all: a little bit ’dirty’, overcoriandered and a tad too phenolic, very clearly a traditionally conceived, 20th-century style Belgian Christmas ale, which is historically based on Scotch ale - hence the toasted bitter aspect in the malt bill. Conceptually, this is as cliché as it gets, neatly fitting into the long tradition of Gordon X-Mas, Corsendonck Christmas Ale, N’Ice Chouffe, Boelens Kerstbier, Delirium Noël, La Binchoise Spéciale Noël, Pater Lieven Kerstpater, and so on, and so forth. But admittedly it feels kind of ’natural’ compared with the more industrial embodiments of this old ’Belgo-Scotch’ style and it is technically correct, so I did enjoy it, all things considered.

8

Imported from untappd on 02-05-2020

6.5

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6

The newest beer from this coastal brewery, a spiced tripel with thickly ’membranous’ lacing, egg-white, thick and frothy, bubbly head and hazy straw blonde robe with vague ochre-ish hue, especially after adding the sediment; calm sparkling. Aroma of green apple (acetaldehyde), ripe gooseberries, lots of soapy coriander, dried basil, pear, banana (clear isoamylacetate), white bread dough, clove-like phenols, iron, fainter hints of pine-scented air freshener (artificial pine, let’s say), bubblegum, powder sugar, dry earth, gin, turnip, freshly grated ginger, moldy orange peel, minerals, unripe kiwi, white pepper, moist sawdust somewhere. Fruity, mildly estery onset, lots of gooseberry, some ripe pear and banana, sweetish and sourish mixture, medium carbo (average for the style) with a supple, lean mouthfeel. Sweet and sour fruitiness carries on over a bready middle with sharper grainy edges, as well as a slight metallic ’zing’, leading to a dryish finish with a herbal, earthy and floral hop bitterness, a lot of soapy coriander spiciness and the expected glow of warming, gin-like alcohol; some bready yeastiness lingers along, and so do the sweet and sour fruitiness as well as traces of the pale malt sweetness. The soapy coriander flavour dominates, all things considered. Spicy tripel indeed, technically correct, but once again ’overcoriandered’ as is the case with too many Belgian ales, whether you look at it from a classically Belgian 20th century point of view or from a contemporary international craft beer point of view. Needs cleaning up and tuning down to more balance and elegance, but at least it is not overly sweet, like many other of the countless tripels which still flood this country.