Paenhuys’ Schapenkop with actual banana added, made in very limited quantities, more an experiment than a really commercially intended beer (so I’m in doubt whether this is ’rateable’ here or not). Thick, creamy, dense, off-white head, clear old gold colour with calm sparkling. Aroma is not at all what I expected (based on unpleasant experiences with more artificial banana beers): it does have banana, but not in a candyishly sweet way, rather banana bread and tropical plantain, the less sweet banana varieties used for cooking; other impressions involve caramel, overripe pear, grass and some natural, undisturbing iron. Sweetish, fruity taste but certainly not sugary, again a kind of natural, genuine plantain effect, bit honeyish, yeasty with a sourish touch, with a deep, earthy hop bitterness in the end. The Schapenkop is all around, but litterally enriched with a very natural, plantain-like banana addition. Without a doubt the best banana beer I ever had, but considering the nastiness of most commercial examples, this is perhaps not as big a deal as it may seem..

Imported from my RateBeer account as 't Paenhuys Bananenbier (by 't Paenhuys):
Aroma: 6/10, Appearance: 2/5, Taste: 5/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 9/20, MyTotalScore: 2.5/5

29/VIII/15 - 33cl bottle @ Lambiekstoempers bierfestival - BB: n/a (2015-1141)

Clear pale orange to blond beer, no head. Aroma: very weird, banana candy, sweet, green banana peel, very funky, some Pisang liquor. MF: ok carbon, medium to light body. Taste: not sweet, weird enough, pretty sour, bit lemony, funky, bitter, banana touch, more Pisang without the sweetness, very weird. Aftertaste: bit sour, metallic, green banana.

From tap. Pours hazy yellow with a small white head. Aroma is light grassy, slight citrusy. Crisp hoppy. Bitter and light herbal. Peachy and grapefruity, bitter and slight citrusy. Bitter and slight citrusy finish.

Apparently (for now) the last of the Paenhuys beers I hadn’t tasted yet. Conceived as a ’typical ale’, with warm orange blonde colour, clear with calm fizz yet brownish amber with deposit (with a dark chunk of proteins at the bottom), under a ’natural’, moussy, crackling, egg-white, fairly loose head retaining around the edges and leaving a thin and discontinuous veil over the liquid. Sweet estery and malty aroma of papaja, pineapple slices in syrup, sweet honey, bell peppers, hazelnuts, caramel, toasted bread, raw red cabbage (no DMS this time), rose petals, hint of pine resin, orange peel, banana, freshly grated ginger, faint hint of chicken broth, unsmoked cigarette tobacco and even some ’menure’ but in a ’good’, countryside kind of way, not disturbing. Crisp, fruity onset, peach, banana and redcurrant, with some hop bitterishness already creeping in; medium carbo, smooth and slick mouthfeel, bit minerally; toasted malts dominate the rest of the palate, caramelly and nutty, bittersweet, with increasing bitterness in the end, leafy, earthy, a bit peppery and drying, with quite long duration; some of the nutty malts peep through as well, but the earthy hop bitterness is the last flavour that remains. No real off-flavours here, quite straightforward but technically well done and certainly quenching; this is a rustic, well-balanced session ale. I am not going to debate about style, but: I admit this has certain similarities with a bottled English bitter, but doesn’t that go for all ’spéciales belges’? I’d rather still see it as a Belgian ale, in the session amber substyle, if any. Smells Belgian, tastes very Belgian... Not that this is a bad thing, of course. Enjoyed it, and this is not because I would want to favorize this brewery, which is located ten-odd miles from where I live: this is a beer which has been taken care of during and after the brewing process, too bad it is not more widely available in this Waasland region.

Hobby brew for De Beverse Mout (which means ’Beveren malt’ as well as ’Beveren measurement’, referring to an old belief that in Beveren, pints were tapped with less foam and more beer than in neighbour city Sint-Niklaas, if my memory doesn’t fail me), commercialized through Paenhuys in nearby Nieuwkerken; tasted at Plato in Beveren. Thick and moussy, cream white, sticky head, colour pure golden blonde, clear but hazy with deposit, with very strong, almost champagne-like fizz. Aroma of grassy and floral hops, white bread, weeds, apple peel, peach, pineapple and a faint sulphuric accent. Crisp in the mouth, subdued fruitiness (unripe peach, green plum, apple, gooseberry) with a kind of basic sourishness (wheat?) and strong carbo, expected based on the fierce sparkling; pleasant bready malts underneath, sweetish and smooth, bit yeasty especially in the end, finishing in a relatively long, floral, grassy and lightly spicy hop bitterness, very quenching. Nothing extravagant here, fairly run of the mill, but apart from a very weak sulphuric presence in the nose, there are no real flaws in here; in all a more than decent Belgian blonde, of the type I could drink all afternoon, with a more hop forward profile than usual in this style.

at ZBF15. Thnx for sharing, people ! Pours unclear yellow. Smell is sharp, bit cirtussy. Taste is sharp, bit lemons . Rather wattery.

Very dark brown. Only a light roast in the aroma. More sweet than bitter. Some herbal notes and a bit of a fruity finish. Smooth and creamy texture.

Hazy yellow colour. Aroma and flavour have some yeast, citrus and sweet malts. A nice and smooth tripel.

Stout from ’my’ Waasland region - ten years ago, I could never have imagined that one of my favorite beer styles would have been brewed at less than ten miles from where I live... Light beige, creamy but thin head, colour is a clear very dark bronze but not the pitch black you’d expect from the style. Pleasant aroma of caramel, liquorice, hazelnuts, raisins, blackcurrant but unfortunately some DMS (cooked cabbage) as well; the expected bitter chocolate and coffee are there, but (too) subtly so. Sweetish taste, quite dense initially, candied dates, light sourish hint, smooth, somewhat powdery and resinous mouthfeel, caramelly to the point where I begin to suspect industrial caramel has been added for colour, much leaner body than expected seems to confirm this; still, it finishes in bitter chocolate flavours, yeasty accents, spicy hop bitterishness and a hint of warming alcohol. Not a bad beer at all, but I do not consider it a true imperial stout: this is more like the traditional Flemish sweet stouts at a high ABV level, in looks, taste and body (the brewer himself told me that he put in all the ingredients for imperial stout, but deliberately kept them subdued because a true black, roasted beer would not appeal to his customers - needless to say, I immediately recommended him to forget about that). Update: re-rated when a representative of the brewery offered me a bottle, last year’s version, apparently now made with raisins and whisky malt; no DMS anymore, seemingly a bit more phenols (but this could easily be the whisky malt) and sweeter, with a murky appearance. I liked this a lot more than the original version upon which my original rating is based, so I’ll rate this as an average of both tasting sessions.

Sampled @ Zythos Bierfestival 2015 Trübe goldgelbe Farbe, geringe weiße Schaumkrone .Geruch grasig, hefig, Citrus. Geschmack hefig, grasig mit einer dezenten Bitterkeit.