75 cl bottle. Pours hazy brown with a small tan head. Aroma is phenolic and toasted malt. Breadish and toasted malt. Phenolic and caramelish. Wooden, toasted and dry phenolic. Breadish and toastedmalt. Dry and phenolic finish.

Bottle at the Essen Winter Beer Festival, 2015. Poured a murky medium brown with a round off white head. The aroma is sweet malt, coffee, spices. The flavour is light sweet with a dry malt spicy yeast bitter palate. Medium bodied with soft carbonation.

33cl bottle courtesy of and shared with Kermis. Thin white head. Hazy golden pour. Boring wit bier.

Bottle shared. Pours very hazy golden with a white head. Aroma of weedy hops, light citrus, yeast and dough. Flavour is above light sweet and light to moderate bitter. Above light bodied with light carbonation.

Bottle shared. Pours hazy golden with a small white head. Aroma of yeast, herbal notes, caramel and light fruits. Flavour is moderate sweet and bitter. Medium bodied with light carbonation.

33cl bottle courtesy of and shared with Kermis. Thin white head. Hazy a golden pour. An average triple

28/11/2015 - 15cl sample @WBF2015, Bierhalle Deconinck, Vichte. Hazy light yellow, nose is a lot of wheat, some citrus. Taste : wheat, light sourness, some citrus, some sweetness.

@ WBF 2015. Hazy yellow, white foam. Grassy and bitter, sweet banana with citrus notes. Bitter finish. Well balanced. Good.

’Massieve ale’ (Belgian strong dark) made exclusively for De Keersmaeker, a quiet, small and old-fashioned drinks center in the village of Bazel. Bottle purchased there. Contrary to many earlier reviews here, my sample showed no gushing whatsoever, but then I have a closer look at the label and see that its brewer has changed from Boelens to Paenhuys meanwhile, which probably explains this, and must have resulted in a somewhat different beer, with a slightly higher ABV of 9%. Strangely, the label also mentions that it can be stored "until 2 years after selling date" - now there is a way to ditch Belgian law imposing diary product laws onto beer when it comes to "best before" dates... Initially clear (but cloudy with deposit), deep burgundy brown coloured beer with ruby hue, very dark but transparent, bearing a creamy, irregularly formed, egg-white, very stable head. Aroma of dried plums, hazelnuts, Kirsch, diluted coffee grounds, cold tea, nutmeg, old cocoa powder, dry branches, damp cloth, old ’jenever’, white pepper, baked banana. Taste starts with a restrained, not too estery, pleasant ’dried’ fruitiness of raisins, dried banana and dito prunes with just a subtle touch of candi sweetness and soft to medium carbonation; very smooth, lightly oily, soft and agreeable mouthfeel, fairly thick, caramelly and toasted maltiness, a tad chocolatey and even a little bit roastedly bitterish in the end with a brief and volatile hint of coffee. Bitterness builds in the finish with leafy, peppery hops providing enough structure and flavour for the style, a bit herbal, pairing well with the malt sweetness and rounded off with a glow of ’jenever’-like alcohol going down the throat and warming the chest without becoming too astringent, though a certain alcoholic wryness lingers on the root of the tongue, very reminiscent of young ’graanjenever’; the hops spiciness and softly bitterish roasted maltiness also remain behind after swallowing, leaving a gentle bittersweet aftertaste, reinforced with powdery yeast in the end. I can easily imagine how this was of a far lesser quality when Boelens made it, in those days Boelens had technical issues and delivered pretty ill-fated beers every now and then (yet in the meantime, I hasten to add, these issues have been resolved apparently, resulting in much better - and more stable - quality). In this new Paenhuys version, however, this is quite well-balanced and technically accomplished, with a restraint, not overly estery yeastiness, a thick, pleasantly filling maltiness and well-dosed hoppiness. Certainly worth a try, though I would not make the detour to Bazel for it as such (although that is exactly what I did today). Be sure to sample it fairly young, though: I kept one in my cellar for about a year, and already at that age, it had become notably less charming, with a strong FFF presence in the nose (manure, rotting leaves). My rating here concerns only a relatively young bottle. Note: seems to be an alias of Zwarte Zjef, but since a previous version was made at Boelens and therefore certainly not Zwarte Zjef, it is perhaps better to keep regarding this as a separate beer?

At ’bierweekend de lambiekstoempers ’ . Pours unclear blonde. Mildly sweet banana scent. Taste is bitter, some sweet, fruity aroma. Not super-clear banana though ( could you taste it blindly ? I doubt it ) Yeasty backbone. Nice, but nothing like you’d expect ( might be a good thing though )