10 April 2021. Cheers to Maarten, Eduard & Domien! Clear golden, stable, small, foamy, white head. Aroma of baker's yeast, grain, grass, hay, apple peel, pear, herbs, vague wood. Taste has a restrained sweetness of apple & pear, bready maltiness, dry yeast, a bit grainy, hay-like bitter. Grassy hoppy finish, dry & yeasty, lingering typical grainy maltiness, some warming jenever alcohol. Medium body, slick texture, fizzy carbonation. Nothing wrong with it but it's so generic and... 'beery'. If an alien were to ask what beer is, we would serve him this. But I don't really care for this type of ale anymore.

33cl bottle from Bierwinkel De Hopduvel in Gent. F: big, white, good retention. C: shiny gold, light hazy. A: malty, apricot, sweet fruity, honey, yeasty, floral, candy sugar. T: full malty base, peach, honey, bready, floral, candy sugar, decent harmonic bitterness inside, medium carbonation, simple yet nice balanced tripel for me, enjoyed.

Thanks to Jef V. For this bottle! Slightly soapy-fruity nose. Yeasty, hoppy, dry.

Belgian blonde ale honouring the municipality of De Pinte southwest of Ghent, brewed by Contreras in Gavere (south of De Pinte). Steinie bottle from Latems Drankhuys. Very thick and foamy, rocky, strongly 'Brugse kant'-like lacing, stable, egg-white head sustained by strong, almost 'champenoise' sparkling in a clear, peach blonde beer with 'metallic' pale orangey hue, turning misty with sediment. Aroma of unsugared chewing gum, strawbales, unripe banana, raw parsnip, damp earth, dusty old coriander seed and a lot of it, dried field flowers, sawdust, subtle honey touch, old rusk, sandpaper, dried out orange peel, old herbarium. Crisp onset, fizzy carbonation, very minerally but not painfully stinging; sweetish notes of red apple, banana and peach but all quite restrainedly so, light sourish undertone. Supple, bit glueish body with a somewhat 'dusty' effect to it; old almonds, rusk and bread crust, malty and a bit sweetish, with slightly bubblegummy sides. Floral, bit earthy finish, clear coriander seed in a 'dusty' way rather than becoming annoyingly soapy (even if it still annoys me), ending gently straw-like bitter with some breadiness from the yeast peeping through - as well as lingering effects from the coriander. Another overcoriandered, simplistic, fizzy Belgian blonde, luckily not too sweet in this case which is why I grant it a relatively high score - but that does not take away the fact that this beer bores me to death, especially right after a rather impressive American wild ale. I do, however, appreciate the fact that Contreras is not too afraid of hops, and the bitterness does linger for a while in this one, so for me personally, it ends up just a little bit higher than average for a Belgian ale. That said, I would recommend the people of nearby De Pinte to come to Ghent to enjoy some truly good beers...