Bottle from LDW, Eke. Hazy yellow colour, creamy white foam. Nose of citrus, peach. Taste is very weak, watery and dull. Bitter and grassy. But the price! €5,5 for such a mediocre beer is a shame.

New Belgian ale commissioned by (and named after François Huysmans from Foodtaster.be in collaboration with journalist Patrick Van Gompel and the well-known brewer Marc Knops. Received quite a lot of attention due to the fact that one of the commissioners is a familiar face on television and claims to be "unique" due to the use of four hop varieties and four different yeast strains (one of which I strongly suspect to be a champagne yeast) - of which the latter is indeed uncommon in Belgium, though I hesitate to literally call it unique. Anyway, comes from a quite luxuriously looking, skittle-shaped bottle with golden print (much the same look as that new Galea also from the Antwerp region - in fact I first thought it was a bottle of Galea when I spotted it in the local Prik & Tik where I bought it), with the name printed on the crown cap - clearly the commissioners mean business with this one, and put cost and effort at least in design. Let’s hope the same expensive approach is reflected in the beer. Medium thick, regular, off-white head leaving behind flat islands of foam in the middle and a steady rim on the edge, on top of a hazy ’old gold’ coloured beer with warm orangey tinge. Malty and phenolic aroma of fried apples, banana but no overt bubblegum, ripe pear, camomile, dried apricot, bread crust, cloves, minerals, cooked parsnip, ’oude jenever’, soapy coriander seed, soggy white bread, dried orange peel, fainter hints of cumin cheese, raw rhubarb, pineapple slices, powder sugar, straw, turnip. Fruity, crisp onset, banana ester mingled with hints of pear, unripe nectarine and gooseberry, sweetish with a nicely souring edge but numbed by very strong, fizzy overcarbonation, which adds a certain amount of sourishness and coarsens the mouthfeel, which is otherwise ’full’ and supple, yet soapy as well. Carbonation keeps stinging the sides and surface of the tongue as a bready, very lightly caramelly and even somewhat nutty malt sweetishness develops in the middle paired with a considerable amount of wheat soapiness (wheat malt effectively having been used here), with the fruity esters moving backwards. Spicy phenols (cloves, vague cumin seed or even aniseed) quite strongly develop in the end, alongside the eternal soapy coriander and floral, slightly hayish hoppiness, remaining ’dim’ in retronasal aroma but providing some elementary earthy bitterness below, the earthiness being reinforced by yeasty effects. Malt sweetness and banana ester keep prevailing even when a significant amount of warming, ’jenever’-like alcohol comes to the foreground - yet it somehow manages to stay in place and avoid unpleasant astringency. Classically coriandered, candi syrup-boosted, banana-estery and malt sweet Belgian tripel, with the natural soapiness of the coriander accentuated by the presence of wheat malt. I did not have too high hopes for this - the name alone is as obsoletely Belgian as it gets - and they prove right, this beer, in spite of its fancy bottle, does not add anything significant to the Belgian beer map. Far from a bad tripel, don’t get me wrong, I just do not think it deserves this amount of attention compared with many others that receive less publicity. The first batch of 8000 bottles seems to be sold out already in a short amount of time, but the project will be continued, I heard.

Sampled at Zythos 2017. Thnx for sharing, Ruben and Tim ! Pours rather unclear blonde, small white head. Smell is full, fruity. Not too sweet. Yeasty. Taste is sharp, bit bitter. fruity esthers. High carbo. Def aiming for a champagne-like feel. OK

33 cl bottle. Pours hazy orange with a small white head. Aroma is phenolic and toasted malt. High carbonation. Mild fruity. Slight estery. Medium dry and light fruity finish.

Imported from my RateBeer account as Expert Beers François Grand Cru (by Expert Beers BVBA):
Aroma: 6/10, Appearance: 2/5, Taste: 5/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 9/20, MyTotalScore: 2.5/5

23/IV/17 - from bottle @ Zythos Bier Festival 2017 (Leuven) - BB: n/a (2017-1448) Thanks to kraddel for sharing today's beers!

Apparently I skipped this one while entering my ratings... I hope this is not a common thing I do... :p 2 from the same notebook... :(
Clear blonde beer, irregular aery white head, little stable, non adhesive. Aroma: lots of banana, sweet impression, marzipan, yeast. MF: lively carbon, medium body. Taste: bit hoppy, sourish touch, sweet. Aftertaste: lots of banana, sweet, yeasty, bit grassy, slightly bitter. The next thirteen in a dozen tripel, only selling because a famous person is the face for this project. Too sweet, too yeasty and too boring...

Pours clear, darker blonde. Good to big white head. Smell is bit sweet, yeasty. taste is very mildly bitter, yeasty, sweet. another one of those extremely common tasting beers. And - you guessed it - overcarbonated. Yeasty finish, some overripe fruits. Still a semi-fresh beer.

Quad by Varenbroek, bottle from Wijnegemse Drankenhal. Very violent gusher, beer spouted out of the bottle neck even with very careful opening at relatively high temperature. Thinnish, pale greyish beige head leaving a steady but thin rim around the edge and thin ’islands’ of foam in the middle; cloudy burgundy brown robe with mahogany hue. Rich, sweet, liqueurish and alcoholic aroma of red plums, ripe black cherries, Kirsch, ruby port, hint of red fruit-flavored bubblegum, sweet brown rum, kahlua, candied fig, white pepper, lots of caramel, damp earth, cinnamon, roses, straw, Belgian chocolates filled with cherry liqueur, banana, medlar, gravy, brown sugar, dates, cloves, varnish. Sweet flavor, lots of candied fig and soaked raisins, banana isoamylacetate too, light umami accent (gravy) and much stronger undercurrent of elderberry sourishness, sharp carbonation - overcarbonated, in fact - coarsening an otherwise full, rounded, ’fluffy’ mouthfeel. Honeyish and caramelly malt and candi sugar sweet middle, bit sticky due to a lot of residual sugars, estery fruitiness continuing and being accompanied by quite strong phenolic features (cloves); herbal hop bitterishness in the finish, too soft to counter the initial sweetness, followed by a strong, heating, brandy-like alcohol glow, feeling a bit wry all the way at the back but otherwise not interfering too much with the rest. Some lightly toasted malt bittersweetness (but more sweetness than bitterness) remains after swallowing, along with this alcohol warmth. Not too bad flavor-wise, too sweet and a tad too alcoholic for my liking perhaps, but still a bit too messy and lacking depth to compete with the great (trappist) quadrupels. And then there is the gushing issue, of course... Let’s give it the benefit of the doubt then.

Imported from my RateBeer account as Varenbroek Knots Natuurbier (by Brouwerij Varenbroek):
Aroma: 8/10, Appearance: 4/5, Taste: 7/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 15/20, MyTotalScore: 3.7/5

14/VIII/16 - 33cl bottle from Kerstbierenfestival (Essen) @ home - BB: XII/17 (2016-846) Thanks to Rik for transporting the bottles!

Clear dark brown beer, big aery beige head, unstable, bit adhesive. Aroma: sweet, caramel, dried fruits, bit metallic, spicy, liquorish, alcohol. MF: lively carbon, medium body. Taste: sweet start, caramel, spicy touch, dried fruits, liquorish, little roasted. Aftertaste: ripe banana, bit sour, hoppy notes, dried fruits, some black liquorish.

23/04/2016 sample glass shared with the BE RB crew @ZBF2016. Hazy blonde with nice white head. Nose is light citrus, a bit grains. Taste is bitter hops, some grains again, thin ending.

New: 3.1 - Golden colour with thin head. Aroma and flavour have light malts and a touch of vanilla sweetness. Old: 2.4 - Hazy yellow with soapy head. Texture is like soda water. Very high carbonation. A bit sharp. Some yeast and banana notes too.