At Zythos 2017. Pours almost clear brown. Aroma is rather sugary sweet, some candy, very malt-forward. Body is medium, rather sweet with a laid back bitterness and a soft carbonation. Nuts. Palate is lightly sweet. Okay.

At Zythos 2017. Pours clear golden. Aroma is soft, a bit of hops and malts, nothing notable. Body is medium and predominantly bitter. Little sweetness, rather refreshing. Okay.

At Zythos 2017. Pours cloudy pale yellow with a low head. Aroma is lightly hoppy and rather malty, a bit of candy. Body is medium, decently bitter with a soft but present malt backbone. Lively but low carbonation. Palate is rather dry with some lingering bitterness. Okay.

Weich hopfiger, in zweiter Linie hopfiger Beginn. Spritzig, weich grasig, rund. 10/8/9/9//9

Hell hefig herber Antrunk. Angenehm hopfig, weich getreidig. Vollmundig, gut. 10/11/12/12//11

Bottle from Willems. The third one in this seemingly ambitious new series of independent Amburon beers, with classic cobweb-lacing, pale yellowish beige, dense head slowly showing gaps in the middle but thickly retaining on the edges, crowning a clear and translucent, mahogany brown beer with more reddish burgundy tinge. Typical dubbel aroma of caramel candy, damp earth, medlar, ripe pear, banana, peanuts, clove-like phenols (quite outspoken actually), moist tree leaves, sugared tea, black cherries, cassis, blueberry jam, honey, apple pie, more subtle hints of old nutmeg, ginger powder, minerals, wet brown paper, cooked beetroot, some vague FFF, medium rare horse steak, straw, mud, melting brown sugar, haemoglobin. Sweet onset, some residual ’dark’ sugariness but mostly fruity esters, quite a lot of banana isoamylacetate, hints of red apple, ripe juicy pear and pineapple with a sourish brambleberry-ish edge but sweetness dominating (though nowhere cloying), medium carbo (standard for this style, tad minerally), supple and lean, more or less ’filling’ body. Caramelly malt sweet core buisiness here but not too resiny, just your plain old Belgian sugar-enhanced ’brown sweetness’ with a bready undertone while a trace of the esteriness (especially the banana) surfs on top of it but not overdone, leading the way to a slightly drying finish which adds a dash of herbal, almost tea-ish and restrainedly floral hop bitterishness along with some light yeasty earthiness including expressive, though fortunately not too ’medicinal’ phenolic spicy impressions. Ends caramelly and fruity as it began, with still that ’brown sugar’ sweetness lingering insufficiently balanced by a deeper, dim sourishness and this basic hop bitterish note; in other words: caramel sweetness gets the first and last word here. I need to correct myself at this point: I thought the bitter blonde version in this series was a step forward towards international tendencies, but I stand corrected, this is clearly a step backwards, tasting like countless other new Belgian ’browns’ of recent years and proving that Belgium is an extremely stubborn country when it comes to adopting the international craft beer movement. This could have been made thirty years ago in the exact same form - nothing technically wrong with it, but completely lacking in personality. I would have been okay with that when I started rating beers 15+ years ago but in this day and age, it is a waste of money, time and effort to market the most stereotypical dubbel you can imagine. Point off for - probably not deliberately - opposing the much-needed development of a new Belgian identity in this storm of ’craft beers’ raging well over the sleepy Belgian heads for quite some years now. Could have been just any standard dubbel!

33cl Bottle at Lieve. Hazy yellow colour, white head. Aroma is very floral and soapy, malts. Flavour follows, becomes less dry and more sweet towards the finish. Light to medium bodied. Nice, tries to be xx bitter but lacks finesse. Certainly not an IPA btw.

33cl Bottle at Lieve. Hazy golden colour, white head. Aroma of sugar, stone fruits, pear, light spicy. Flavour is medium sweet, light malty, fruity, sugar, light floral, light spicy, light bitter finish. Light to medium bodied. OK Blond.

Tap @ Foeders with Maakun & Markoijelena. Clear dark brown color. Off white sticky head. Aroma’s: vegetal, a bit burned/sulphuric. Retronasal it’s slightly better: sweetish, roasted, sugary, light sulphur. Flavor is moderate sweet, light sour, drop. Medium bodied.

Tap at Foeders. Slight hazy dark mahogany with good sized beige head. Some dried plums and raisins, light toffee, old raspberries, brown sugar, light metallic and dusty. Medium sweet and bitter. Over medium bodied.