Imported from my RateBeer account as La Fougueuse (by L'art d'en brasser):
Aroma: 7/10, Appearance: 4/5, Taste: 8/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 15/20, MyTotalScore: 3.7/5

24/VII/15 - 75cl bottle from Diesters Bierfestival 2014 @ home - BB: VI/2017 (2015-972)

Clear red brown beer, lots of small particles under a small irregular beige to off-white head, little stable, bit adhesive. Aroma: fruity, sweet, caramel, banana, sugary. MF: soft carbon, medium to full body. Taste: sweet, caramel, malty, sugary, little bitter, banana peel. Aftertaste: quite some banana, sweet, little hoppy, metallic touch, slightly burned caramel, strawberry jam. Very decent! Add some US hops and you've got yourself a nice barley wine!

Imported from my RateBeer account as La Lunatique 1 Pain d'Epices (by L'art d'en brasser):
Aroma: 6/10, Appearance: 3/5, Taste: 5/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 11/20, MyTotalScore: 2.8/5

24/VII/15 - 75cl bottle from Diesters Bierfestival 2014 @ home - BB: VII/2017 (2015-969)

Cloudy reddish amber beer, small irregular beige head, pretty stable, bit adhesive. Aroma: very spicy, lots of cinnamon, star anise, sweet, overripe banana, sugary, wine gums. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: lots and lots of cinnamon, weird that I didn't get this in the smell. A bi sweet, some caramel, sourish touch. Aftertaste: very spicy, lots of cinnamon, star anise, some cloves, little bitter, metallic finish.

Bottle from the brewery, thanks Marie for bringing me this from your home town! Gingerbread-spiced Belgian amber ale with lacing, light greyish white, irregular, moussy head over a lightly hazy, orange coloured beer with vivid fizz, turning murky orange with deposit, with the end result being a weird kind of opaque brownish orange, like some artisanally made apple juice. Sweetly perfumed aroma of fresh mandarin and orange peel, gentle freshly grated ginger or even curcuma, apricot, honey, bubblegum, vanilla, cinnamon, banana, candi syrup, coriander seed (damn!), caramel, raisins, star aniseed, roasted bread, hazelnuts, fresh peppermint, bourbon accent, gin, sundried tomato and mango. Fruity, quite crisp onset, apricot, red apple peel, redcurrant and some banana, with a slight resiny spiciness already present; slick but full body with spritzy carbo. A deep, basic sourishness is there, building a bridge to a friendly caramelly malt sweetness, bit honeyish too, with both spicy yeast and actual spices dancing around; I get a very, very light umami taste like in a fresh tomato, along with a touch of ginger and even cumin seed (but I am probably dreaming - this is likely good ol’ coriander again), drying the finish already before the hops pop in, with a deep, earthy, leafy, lightly peppery kind of bitterishness trying to balance the initial fruit and malt sweetness, but not quite achieving that. Juicy, honeyish and very caramelly, even lightly toasted malt sweetness is the last impression, along with a certain yeast sourishness and the remains of the added spices, whatever they are. Spiced, juicy and appetizing Wallonian beer indeed, with a certain saison-like ’untidiness’, resin spiciness and tilted towards the ’easy’ sweet side, this is fine in all respects, but lacks a bit of ’oomph’. Purely technically though, this is obviously well-made: no true flaws or off-flavours here, and the spices are well dosed, which is not always the case in a spiced Belgian ale (I hesitate to call names at anyone, but I had terribly overspiced beers from Saint-Monon many a time, for instance). Very Belgian, a bit ’saison-ish’ in some ways, but I have a suspicion this will not age too well, so I’d recommend consuming it fresh. Finally, I have a certain weakness for their old school, burlesque pin-up themed labels as well. Enjoyed this.

Bottle from the brewery, with a marking on the crown cap warning the consumer for heavy gushing - at least these people are honest, because upon opening the 75 cl bottle, even with the necessary precautions, I lost almost half of the bottle in seconds; it looked like a champagne bottle having been shaken for minutes on end. This must be the most dramatic, fountain-like form of gushing I have ever seen... What was left, was a very coarse and irregular, extremely thick and lasting, off-white head with (at least initially) a massive amount of ’paper-like’ lacing, residing over a murky peach blonde beer with ochre hue, even murkier (not to say muddy) with deposit. ’Artisanal’ aroma of sourdough, stale orange juice, wet cardboard, tons of freshly cut nettles and thistles, fresh pineapple, lots of baker’s yeast, grass, fermenting white grapes, wet clay, lemon zest, overripe peach, dust, white pepper, acacia honey, cider, faint hints of banana liqueur and strawberry jam - ’wild’ and very ’Wallonian’ I’d say, but not really off-putting, not counting the teeming glue-like phenols, that is... Expectedly very estery onset, tons of gooseberries, persimmon, apricot and green apple, sourish and sweetish, with a strong, tingling and further ’souring’ carbonation, spritzy, over a very yeasty, lightly powdery and malt sweetish backbone, a tad bready but otherwise rather grainy. Finish is lingering bready malt sweetness enhanced by the strong ’yeastiness’ rendering this a typical ’dirty’ feeling, along with deep, very earthy but long-lasting hop bitterness and still tingling carbo. Alcohol is not disturbing but not completely hidden either. Well... indeed very saison-like in the most artisanal sense of the word, with a tumultuous refermentation - this clearly needs finetuning and urgently so, but the premises are rather promising. If this new micro brewery manages to control this from a merely technical point of view, I guess it may become a more than decent saison some day, as there are no real off-flavours in it and it hits the saison ’essence’ rather well. A failure for now, that much is clear, but promising, so I will not be too harsh on this one. It makes me curious about the two others I have from this brewery and I must admit I like their labels too, centered around an old school, if not burlesque pin-up theme. Cheers Marie, thanks for bringing me this from your old home town!

Sampled @ O.B.E.R. Kerstbierfestival 2014, Essen. Rötlichbraune Farbe, ordentliche beige Schaumkrone. Geruch sehr malzig, getreidig, fruchtig, Gewürze. Geschmack würzig malzig, dann fruchtig, reife Beeren, Ginger.

Sampled at Kerstbierfestival Essen 2014. Nice dark red to purple color, average sized beige head that lasts for a decent while. Smell and taste malts, red fruits, lightly alcohol, slightly herbs or spices, a soft touch of bitter. Medium body and carbonation. Quite nice.

750 ml. bottle sampled @ O.B.E.R. Kestbierfestival 2014. (Thx!) 7 malts used, multiple hops, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger & orange peel amongst others. Dark brown. Nose is extremely sweet, sugar, syrup de Liège, overkill. Taste is bitter leaves, peel, herbal, sugary, weird bitter herbal spices, fizzy body. Odd & not particularly awesome. Points for originality I suppose, not getting quite a few of the special ingredients.

Orange-amber, lively carbonated beer to medium, dense yellow head. Spicy, bit bready nose; caramel, parsley & leafy, warm aromas. Bitter-spicy and again leafy. Bit burning MF, lightly roasted and toasted. I wouldn’t have guessed the pearsyrup blind, but it is recognisable. Tad human sweat; yeast making the beer more and more creamy. Medium bodied, slick but finish is thinner. Well-carbonated feel. Main flavour slowly fading. Not one to get wild over, but at least a lot better than the Lunatique.

Cram-coloured, mediium head, over faintly hazy copper-amber beer. Pain d’épices indeed! Cinnamon, clove, ginger and the whole lot. Dissolved speculoos, all speculoos spices squared - over the hop. Ouch. Cinnamon keeps coming for ages. Medium bodied, bit spritzy. Let’s keep it simple. NMKoB.

At zomerbierfestival 14 Pours warm amber , ratger clear , small to no head Smell is grainy , typical amber . Taste is grainy , bit sugary . Nice but not very complex