16th October 2014
Gushy fucker! Hazy amber beer, small pale cream colour head. Palate is airy and semi dry. Fine carbonation. Light airy cream. Weird medicinal note. Nuts. Dry caramel malt sweetness and tang. Airy finish brings a little floral bitterness. A bit odd when all is said and done but not terrible.

Bottle Wallington Beer Fest 2014. Gusher! It pours murky brown with a thick beige head. The nose is soft, sweet, fruity, pear, apple, boiled sweet, earth and toasted brown bread. The taste is toasty, earthy, mild acidity, dried fruits, slight burned notes, light alcohol, candy sugar, pear drops, spice and brown bread with dry finish. Medium body and high carbonation. No real depth to it. A pretty basic Belgian bruin.

First, let me discuss the original version, i.e. brewed limitedly by Eric Ameye, the man who started Gaverhopke in 1994 and - as far as I remember - only sold his beers at the door of the brewery. I was stupid enough to buy a whole crate of his beers - including this one - at the beginning of this century... Anyway, this was his magnum opus so to speak, an ’abt’ (quadrupel) with loose, unstable, dirty yellowish white head and dark wine red colour, hazy in general appearance. Strong estery aroma, caramel, port wine, chocolate, candi syrup, pear, overripe blue grapes, elderberries, brambleberries, raisins, cloves, some DMS (red cabbage) and a subtle sulphuric H2S hint, fortunately not present in all the bottles and less outspoken than in most other beers he brewed at that time. The taste was estery, sweet without stickiness, caramelly, smooth, meaty and earthy, very yeasty, port wine hint in the finish, warming alcohol, low hop bitterness. Clearly inspired by Westvleteren 12 but well below that quality level, though I did find this to be an interesting beer with a somewhat different personality than usual in this style. Then Ameye’s brewery was taken over, and the new owners updated many things, yet kept this locally legendary quad in existence. The new version now still comes from a Steini bottle but with totally different label; I bought this particular sample at Fontana in Sint-Niklaas. Loose, bubbly head taking a minimal amount of forcing to fully develop, retreating into an egg-white, moussy, irregular but steady rim over a hazy copper-tinged translucent brown beer with small clogs of dead yeast and proteins at the bottom. Aroma of old ruby port, no more H2S at all, sweet melting caramel candy, candied fig, rum-soaked raisins, baked banana, hint of red Haribo candy even, honey, toffee, maderisation (this is apparently an older bottle by itself), beef broth, ripe blue plum, brown sugar, brown rum, marzipan and nougat, chestnuts, apple sauce, gari, peppercorns. Very sweet onset, lots of stewed plum, banana chewing gum and candied fig with a sourish edge of ripe blackberries, soft carbonation, full but lean mouthfeel, a tad vinous. Residual brown sugar cloys a bit to the palate but adds a certain ’lightness’ to an otherwise filling, very caramelly and toffeeish, eventually almost chocolatey beer (meaning: cocoa powder diluted in water rather than milk), with ongoing banana ester and brown sugar sweetness in the finish; the sweetness sticks to the teeth a bit while at the same time retronasal madera and old port-like effects shine. Ends with a brief and superficial dash of earthy hops - only providing some vague background bitterness - and an afterglow of liqueurish, kahlua-like alcohol, while the brown sugary sweetness keeps cloying alongside overripe blue plum, banana and candied fig impressions, about the same flavours it began with, but the alcohol does add a certain ’pepperiness’ which is not at all unpleasant, certainly in combination with the maderisation. Lacks some complexity for a quadrupel but was lucky enough to experience elegant ageing, I do like the sweet madera- and ruby port-like aspects of this; the alcohol sits firmly in place too without overpowering anything, but this altogether too sweet and cloying even after a couple of years of ageing. Not a bad quad at all - didn’t even gush like many Gaverhopke beers of that time period did - just a bit too sweet and straightforward for what it could have been. In any case a totally different beer than the original version, the same degree of alcohol warmth and residual sweetness has been kept in order to maintain its original character I guess, but the outcome is altogether notably different. One conclusion can be made after tasting both versions, though: this is an interesting, demanding quad, but too simple and obviously way too sweet, both in Eric Ameye’s and Gudrun Vandoorne’s versions. I would not bother about this one too much anymore. My rating here is necessarily an average of both versions (2.9/5 for the original and 3.4/5 for the new one - this has very clearly improved in spite of losing some of its original character).

Original Easter beer, tasted when it was still brewed by the former brewer. Off-white, thin but stable foam, brownish peach blonde colour, cloudy. Aroma of orange, rotten apples, strawberry, dough, coriander, honey, sour yoghurt and a whiff of H2S (sewer). Sweet but not cloying, fruity, estery, soft, honeyish, mild spiciness, soft caramelly finish with very light hop bitterishness. Strange, very artisanal to the point where it looked and tasted like some amateur hobby brew, but still relatively okay, in all.

Artisanal top-fermented cherry beer based on ’t Gaverhopke Blonde, according to the brewer himself - but I’m talking about the original version here, from before the brewery was taken over. Loose, unstable, off-pinkish head, dark ruby red colour, cloudy. Fresh fruits in the nose, sour cherries of course, but subjective impressions of raspberries and apple sauce as well, next to sweetish pale malts and some (fortunately vague) H2S. Fruity onset, clear presence of genuine cherry juice, lightly sweet but a bit tart too, with a light hint of hop bitterishness in the finish. This was a very, and I mean very, old-fashioned cherry beer based on an ale, and in that particular class it wasn’t even the worst. Too bad for the H2S presence, though in this one it was a lot less pronounced than in the (again, original) Blonde, Bruine and Twaalf.

This rating concerns the original version of this beer, tasted at 8 months of age in 2005, when the brewery was still run by Eric Ameye. The bottle did not have a label... Pretty firm, yellowish white, moussy, regular head and dark burgundy colour, cloudy. Weird aroma of tomato, meat broth, brown sugar, cloves, liquorice, balsamic vinegar, sherry, dough. Sweetish taste, fruity esters, tomato, yeasty, dark malts, something ’umami’ and meaty, smooth, with low hop bitterness. Very strange but not really that bad - compared with the other original Gaverhopkes, at least.

One of the innovations made by the new owners of the Gaverhopke brewery, this one since 2008; inspired by Liefmans Glühkriek, i.e. their regular kriek but spiced and intended to be served hot. Very loose, quickly disappearing head, deep orangey colour, clearly less red than the regular version, clouded. Aroma of fresh sour fruit (though not convincingly cherries), cinnamon, cloves, aniseed, ginger, honey. Seemingly genuine fruity sourishness in the onset, lots of actual cloves and cinnamon, sweet honeyish middle, brown sugar, dry fruit tartness in the finish; quite a good balance between sweet and sour.

Blond session beer, in its original form, i.e. brewed by the former owner of the Gaverhopke brewery, when it was still very low profile (I had to drive there by car to get my hands on their beers). Thin, loose, off-white, unstable head, peach blonde colour, cloudy. Fruity and estery aroma, pear, apricot, straw, yeast, cardboard and H2S (rotten egg)... Fruity taste, light maltiness, sweetish with insufficiently low hoppiness for balance, caramelly finish. Too sweet, infected and unbalanced, as litterally all the other beers I bought that day. Gaverhopke has clearly improved a lot in the hands of the new owners.

Bottle at Wallington 2014. It pours clear golden with a medium white head. The nose is soft, fruity, juicy, fresh orange, tangerine, sherbet and straw. The taste is clean, crisp, bitter, sherbet, orange, tangerine, straw, earth, brioche and light alcohol with a dry finish. Medium body and moderate carbonation. Crisp, clean and very drinkable. Crushable for the abv.