Sold as Le Féodale de la Roche Ambrée 33 cl bottle. Orange blonde color. Mandarin and a touch of yeast in the aroma. Thin. Dusty. Orange flavor, slightly yeasty. Hopbitter aftertaste with yeast. Disappointing.

Bottle. Amber color. Ginger, citrus and floral hops in the aroma. Citrus, peach, ginger and a floral hopbitterness in the flavor. Sweetish and fruity. Fairly well balanced.

Bottle from the war museum. Murky brown with a medium head. Aroma of sweet yeast malt. Chocolate, tangy fruit yeast, caramel sweet nut. Light bitter hop finish.

From the bottle. Fittingly amber with a frothy white head that lingers. Lots of spice up front in the aroma, followed by a mild yeastiness. Taste is sweet up front, rounded out by an ashy, cigarette smoke bitterness that stays fairly mild. Medium body, mild to average carbonation and a slightly watery texture. Okay overall.

Dark brown colour, beige foam. Sweet malty with notes of chocolate and dried fruit. Taste is rather sweet and malty, nice little bitterness. Good dubbel.

Bottle from Carrefour. Hazy gold with a full head. Aroma of honey wheat. Flavour is sweet malt, grains, yeast and spiced but a bit too sweet.

Bottle from Carrefour. Cloudy orange with a full head. Aroma of yeasty hop. Flavour is bitter yeast, sticky soap, herbal yeast finish.

Bottle. Gusher. Color: Hazy brown, beige head. Let's start by my opinion that this beer in no way can be an original beer. Brasserie Saint-Monon displays on their website that they deliver their beers to a number of associations and companies and they have several more 7,5% Brown Ales and Abbey Dubbels. My assumption is that many of these, if not all, are the same beers. Anyway... this beer is bought at the War Museum in Bastogne. Pretty expensive for a label beer at EUR 3,-. You can buy this Brown Ale and an Amber Ale but you can also buy a nice package with two grenade-like earthenware cups labeled "Belgium 1944". Dedicated to the many soldiers that fought in the Ardennes in 1944, which by itself is a good case. Aroma: Dark malt, caramel. Taste: Malty, over medium sweet, caramel, notes of yeast and nuts, brown sugar. Moderate hopbitter. Below average carbonation, medium body. Overall a pretty decent beer, but not outstanding and not different from a lot of other Brown Ales that are sold over here.

Witbier by Saint-Monon in the Famenne region in French-speaking Belgium, probably quite new, but old-fashioned in all respects including the label... Made with Belgian main ingredients including wheat from their own region. Regular but thinnish and quickly breaking, egg-white head, instantly settling as a steady moussy ring but nearly completely dissolving in the middle, over an initially lightly hazy, pure and warm 'old gold' coloured beer with vague greenish tinge, shifting to a completely misty, ochre-tinged straw blonde with sediment. Aroma of strong soapy coriander, withering lemongrass, curaçao, white bread dough, green apple, spoiling cucumber, banana mush, sourish and sweating bird seed, sourdough, cut flowers, damp camomile, moldy lemon peel, straw, turnip juice, radish, spicy phenols, melting margarine, damp farmland earth. Crisp, fruity onset, estery but in a more or less restrained manner, hinting at green apple acetaldehyde, unripe pear, banana and raw pineapple, sweetish with a souring edge accentuated by a sharpish, minerally carbonation effect; lean, slick mouthfeel, tad soapy, with a dim underlying wheat sourishness to it - paired with a medium-proportioned 'white' bready 'barleyness'. The wheaty soapiness is explicitly reinforced by soapy coriander seed, releasing the old familiar sweetish spiciness retronasally along with dried citrus peel notes which effectuate a quite refreshing effect, though they are unable to compete with the coriander. Light lemon zestiness does linger, however, lifting the whole thing up to a more crisp and bright level, matching with the camomile-like floral aspects of the hops; these also provide a certain soft, gentle end bitterishness, while the soapiness and wheatiness keep prevailing. Ends quite juicy, somewhat spicy with a firm dosis of spicy, clove- and even vaguely anise-like phenolicness on top; pleasant breadiness lingers as well as that old lemongrass touch. Ends as soapy as it began, but in a way quite typical - and therefore tolerable - for a Belgian 'blanche'. Artisanal epigone of the industrialised Hoegaarden standard in all respects - nothing bad going on here, but coriander rules and to be honest, after decades of indulging in Belgian beers I had my share of this particular spice. If Saint-Monon has any ambitions at all to go beyond regional relevance, this was probably not the right choice to make commercially speaking, though there is no denying that technically - and honestly, contrary to my expectations from this brewery - an accomplished old school Belgian wit.