6.8

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6

One of six regular beers made by a female brewer (An Aerts), produced in limited quantities at a brewpub she and her husband (Davy Van Laer) have established in the quiet and green Antwerp Kempen region. The building that houses this brewpub (since last year) was apparently already a brewery in the 17th century and Mrs. Aerts has worked as a quality manager at the trappist brewery of Westmalle, so these people do have something to show for in terms of background, I reckon. They are currently serving their beers at their own premises (obviously) as well as selling them to a couple of local bars and beer stores, but production is still less than 100 hl per year, so for now, this FloRik phenomenon remains a very local one. This 'hoppy blonde' was brewed with pale malt and malted wheat, late-hopped with Cascade and bottled in a 33 cl vichy bottle with extremely basic labels, one on the front and one at the back, though it is not self-evident to determine which is which... Anyway, here we go: regularly shaped, quite creamy and dense, egg-white, sparsely lacing, even-bubbled, firm and frothy head on a misty peach blonde beer with ochre-ish edges and some visible sparkling quietly rising upwards through the mist. Aroma of banana bread, dried peach, crumbled old apple cake, dried orange peel, honey, baker's yeast, subtler hints of cantaloupe, cloves, roses, white soap, pastries, radish peel, sweetclover, 'carré confiture', stewed turnip. Fruity-estery onset, strong banana isoamylacetate, a tad bubblegummy even, as well as hints of ripe pear, peach and pineapple, with a faint dash of melon perhaps; sweet, but not sugary, with relatively gentle carbonation (especially for what is apparently intended as a saison). Slick, bit glueish mouthfeel, very bready with a layer of lingering honeyish residual sugar on top, while fruity esters and spicy phenols dance on top, leading to a spicy, yeasty finish with indeed some orange peel-perfumey Cascade, but also strong clove- and very vaguely thyme-like phenols. An earthy, floral bitterness stretches out over the root of the tongue but gently so, some wheat soapiness lingers and a lot of yeast-derived breadiness remains. Belgian blonde with a slight modern twist, the Cascade does add aroma but in a somewhat 'muffled' way - dry-hopping would have been a much better option here, certainly if you are going to use a highly aromatic New World variant; also a bit too sweet, especially for its saison intentions it should have been fermented out more, and a bit more carbonated. That said: not unpleasant at all, no major technical errors and easily drinkable, so not badly done for such a young and small microbrewery.

7

What’s in a name ...

9

--- Beer merged from original tick of DronkAerts Donker Blond on 27 Aug 2021 at 18:27 - Score: 7

7

Eerste onbekend artisanaal biertje voor Untappd. Hier is check in nr 1 😊🍺 Kruidig witbiertje met Koriander en bittere appelsienschil