Nice refreshing ale Hazed deep golden in the glass and a fine head Ok intensity in the aroma Balanced sweetness and a fine carbonation level Malty, wheat, fruity, mild banana and some yeast in the flavor [Bottle (as Tongerlo Blond) at ’t Einde in Gent, Belgium]

The brown (dubbel) one in this newish abbey beer series by Haacht, named after a renowned Antwerp abbey and produced for the Aldi supermarket chain. Almost certainly an alias of Tongerlo Bruin, but since I have no hard evidence or confirmation (yet), I cannot but treat it as a separate beer here... Thick and frothy, busily cobweb-lacing, pale greyish beige, irregularly edged but quite dense and very stable head on a crystal clear chestnut brown beer with copper red glow. Aroma of burnt sugar, dry caramel, toast, chewing gum, clove (quite pronounced), very strong iron (and very convincingly confirmed by the 'hand test'), crumbled old 'speculoos', brown bread crust, breakfast cereals, dry bayleaf, damp earth note. Clean, sweetish onset, some light banana and pear notes but little 'esteriness' in general, with vague and dull sourish undertone, very lively (and artificially) carbonated with minerally effects drowning out the low fruitiness; smooth middle of hard-caramelly maltiness with cereally core, notes of brown bread crust and toast but all simplistic and superficial, while this iron effect manifests itself as a metallic 'zing'. Some more toasty bitterishness in the finish, convincing me that actual dark malts were used here and not just caramel to 'dye' a blonde beer brown (as I am convinced is the case with Leffe Brune and Grimbergen Double), while a superficial yet leafy and balancing hop bitterness also shows up. Burnt sugary and dried dark fruity effects linger, but everything remains unsurprisingly simple, shallow and metallic. In comparison with the abovementioned brands of mass-marketed abbey beers, this is admittedly not the worst, but it remains an industrially made, 'dead' and pasteurized, simple macro beer for the masses - just like Tongerlo, which I remain convinced is the same thing as St-Michel. Poor and bland, but there is even worse - about the same conclusion as for the blonde one. I was thinking of using the remaining bottles in my 'stoverij' (beef slowly stewed in beer, a very classic Flemish food staple even described by the legendary Escoffier in 1903) but I am hesitating if this beer is even good enough for that...

Tap and bottle. Aroma: caramel, fruity esters, sweetish, liqueur. Taste: caramel candies with honey-liqueur-coffee filling, corn sticks with rum-based syrup, a bit fruity, not bad.

As Tongerlo Blond. 33 cl bottle. Color of light honey with a noisy snow-white cap. Aroma: malt, honey, candied fruit and toffee. Taste: malty, candied pear and apple, a bit honey, mild hop bitterness. Nice blonde.

Newish abbey beer (in blonde and brown as usual - I bet there is a tripel on the way too), named after the St. Michael's Abbey in Antwerp and commercialized through the Aldi supermarket chain, or at least that is where I found it. Egg-white, moussy, medium thick, somewhat frothy, irregularly lacing, stable head on a crystal clear (filtered) 'old golden' beer with deep pale orange hue, in fact darker than average for a blonde abbey ale, showing a steady column of head-feeding sparkling in the middle. Aroma of soggy cookies, honey, pear, touch iron but not over the top, some candyfloss, coriander seed, brioche, overcooked kale (DMS - but luckily remaining very vague), old potatoes, raw turnip, grass. Sweet onset but not too cloying and not overly bubblegummy, still outspoken banana, peach and pineapple esters though a bit 'shaved off' by the pasteurisation and filtering, sharply carbonated with very minerally effect lasting till the finish; slick, thinnish, supple body, the cooked smell of pasteurisation soon becoming clear enough retronasally, over a lean cereally body with less biscuity or cookie-like maltiness than I was hoping for based on colour - clearly this brew was made the old Belgian way, with white candi syrup replacing part of the malt, resulting in a thinned, superficial and simplistic core. Slight metallic notes along the way, clear spicy coriander seed in the finish and eventually a lightly grassy, superficial yet relatively effective hop bitter note, somewhat drying an otherwise sweetish finish. Still less sweet and 'bubblegummy' than I was fearing, I must admit; the big question here is of course whether this is an original recipe or simply an alias of Tongerlo Blond, Haacht's staple abbey beer since 1990: I coincidentally happen to have drunk Tongerlo Blond on New Year's Eve in some pub in Ghent and from what I remember, it was sweeter than this one, but otherwise very similar. The fact that this particular Tongerlo Blond sample came from a keg rather than a bottle could account for this difference in sweetness; I guess I should have a Tongerlo Blond right next to this one to see if there are any differences at all, but I suspect it will be exactly the same so in my mind, this St. Michel is a simple alias created for Aldi and nothing more. I will try to find out more about this and if I am right, I think a merging of this entry with Tongerlo Blond will be in order (same story for the brown St-Michel, no doubt)...

6/I/24 - 25cl bottle, shared @ home, BB: 11/VII/23 07:47 (2024-15)

Clear blond beer, small irregular white head, unstable, a bit adhesive, falls down quickly. Aroma: very malty, grains, hay, a bit oxidized (my bad), some cardboard. MF: lively carbon, medium body. Taste: very malty, grains, pretty sweet, a little bitter, more malty, a little fruity, some banana. Aftertaste: gentle bitterness, a bit metallic, grains, sweet, oxidized, cardboard.

Clear golden/amber bour with a small white head; aromas of yeast and malt, later some banana and other fruit. Taste is similar - quite crisp with a nice aftertaste. Not bad, but in a field of strong contenders it does not really stand out.

Clear golden beer with a white head. Aroma of herbal strong pale malt, yeast. Taste of herbal malt, strong malt, spices, yeast.