Kölsch style beer from this new and rather innovative microbrewery in the larger Antwerp region, bottle from the brewery. Medium thick, slightly papery-lacing, off-white head slowly showing gaps here and there but generally well-retaining, lightly hazed deep 'old gold' robe with ochre-ish tinge and lively sparkling. Aroma of green pear, unripe melon, baked banana, brioche bread, camomile flowers, pan-fried apple rings, powder sugar, cold French fries, vague hints of mint leaf, parsnip and minerals. Sweetish onset, banana ester mingled with notes of pear, apricot and red apple, crisp and minerally carbonation, slender, slightly oily body; pleasantly bread crumb- and dry cookie-like maltiness, sweetish with a slight hint at residual, honeyish sugars but restrainedly so, leading to a dryish finish with ongoing bready and minerally aspects accompanied by a floral hoppiness, providing a softly lingering, grassy bitterness and retronasal sweet meadow flower aromas. The banana, pear and peach fruitiness linger along - too much so for a Kölsch, which should be all but devoid of yeasty effects due to long cold lagering; in general, this Ganz Geit remains too sweet and yeasty to fully qualify as a successful Kölsch in my book. Tastes more like a restrained and 'pure' (unspiced) interpretation of an ordinary Belgian blonde, in fact, but admittedly an above average one; needs more cleanness and crispness, less yeasty elements and less sweetness to even approach a true Kölsch, but I must admit that Mortselarij is well on its way to it here, and once again shows the right brewing skills for such a young brewing project. Not bad at all, but not really a Kölsch for me (at least when I compare with the only other one brewed in Belgium so far to my knowledge, Kölsch Is Not Pils by Dok Brewing Company in Ghent, which was much closer to the real thing...).

Pours unclear yellow, medium sized, creamy, very stable white head. Smell is grassy hops, white pepper phenols. Taste is sharp, carbonic bite, grassy hops. Bitter finish. Very bice session beer, but of course calling this a NE style is pretty far off .

APA-style beer from this new and ambitious craft beer project in the Antwerp region. Snow white, mousy, stable, slowly opening head on a clear, warm orange-glowing peach blonde beer, misty orange with sediment. Aroma of orange peel, caramel candy, candied lemon, melon, lychee, peanuts, lime zest. Sweetish onset, candied almost, with again melon- and orange-like aspects as well as vague hints of lychee and pear; very light sourish touch, softish carbonation. Smooth caramelly and biscuity maltiness with a slight peanutty edge, oily and slick, leading to a gently but confidently bittering finish of grapefruit, kitchen herbs and orange zest, while the biscuity effect lingers. APAs have long been surpassed by American style IPAs to a large extent and thus never really got the chance to flourish in other countries embracing craft beer culture - including Belgium, where I can count them on the fingers of one hand. This one is therefore an interesting addition to the ever-growing list of Belgian beers even if there is nothing truly 'Belgian' to it; in itself, and compared with APAs I had from the U.S. and other countries, this is a sweet and smooth, but very focused, clean and well-made example. Anything but evident for a starting brewery here in Belgium...

The summer 'freshener' from this new craft brewery near Antwerp, bottle from the brewery. Thick and frothy, snow white, shred-lacing, uneven-bubbled but stable head on a lightly hazy straw blonde beer with apricot tinge. Quite strong aroma of indeed grapefruit juice but in a softened - or should I say - sugared way, halfripe pear, banana peel, lemongrass, white bread dough, clear soapy wheat, baking soda, lime zest, freshly cut leeks, vague whiffs of fresh camomile, honey, gypsum and baker's yeast. Crisp, refreshing onset (even at the relatively high temperature that I am tasting it at), sweetish and sourish, lively with fruity notes of green banana, pear, peach, pineapple and indeed lots of zesty citrus but again in a non-bitter way and more reminiscent of orange or even orangelo (a Puerto Rican cross between orange and grapefruit); fizzy carbonation, slender but still relatively 'full' mouthfeel. Bready and lightly wheat-soapy maltiness, rounded, soaked in this citrusiness but also nicely florally and citrusy hopped in the end, with a light but important bitterness and 'deeper' spiciness that supports the added grapefruit element. Yeasty-bready and citrusy-floral-hoppy effects, along with sweetish pale maltiness, dominate the finish, but indeed this citrus aspect continues too, without ever overruling the rest. Belgian IPA with an extra flavouring that kind of lifts this one over the growing pool of more 'ordinary' Belgian style IPAs (or explicitly hoppy Belgian ales, if you will); if the intentions with this beer are to be perfected, I think it could benefit from a still cleaner profile in terms of yeastiness, but being Belgian, I have to admit that I do like this bready aspect. Not bad at all - this Mortselarij seems promising enough, just like I was predicting for myself when I considered buying a mixed sixpack of their brews. Oof!

17/VII/20 - 33cl bottle from a trade, shared @ home, BB: 9/IV/20 (2020-650) Thanks to Alengrin for the trade!

Clear orange beer, big creamy dense off-white head, stable, adhesive, leaving a nice lacing in the glass. Aroma: bit malty, grains, caramel, little fruity. MF: ok carbon, medium body. TAste: bit fruity up front, some citrus, soft bitterness, pretty hoppy. Aftertaste: bit herbal, grassy, yeast, caramel, very minty, some citrus, good one!

The classic tripel in this otherwise not (too) classic first series of Mortselarij beers, bottle from the brewery. Very thickly mousy, egg-white, uneven-bubbled, irregularly lacing, thinning and eventually opening head on an initially lightly hazy, slightly peach-tinged 'old gold' coloured beer with lots of visible sparkling, turning misty and somewhat deeper orangey-peach with sediment. Aroma - after the sharp effect of carbon dioxide has faded a bit - of ripe banana, cooked apple, ripe pear, honey, calvados, sugar loaf, orange zest, cold rain falling on hot rocks, sugar cones, bitter plant leaves, old dry grapefruit peel. Spritzy, rather sweet onset with a slight sourish edge, strong banana ester mingled with pineapple, pear and peach, relatively pronounced honeyish sugariness over a soft, doughy, bready malt base, medium carbonated; floral and orange zest aromas retronasally, quite elegantly so. Ends with a mildly spicy hoppy bitterness and quite some outspoken, calvados-like, warming alcohol, balancing on the brink of astringency but (just) remaining tolerable. Decent enough tripel, supple and quite elegant if not too ambitious for the style - because to be fair, this is just another sweet and boozy, redundant tripel. There is worse in this segment, though.

Ultra dense & fine head, huge, totally stable with a pinkish-yellow sheen, over fully cloudy orange beer. Bit sweetish nose, one more terribly hampered by the concrete head. Slightly perfumey, even fruit, yeast features dominating. After some time, hint @ vanilla. Sweet-alcoholic-scorched sugar. Finish has both something peppery as well as green vegetables. Amandine/vanilla warming up. Well-bodied (for a triple), bit slick, good carbonation. Maybe my least favourite Mortselarij so far - then again, the "style", Westmalle excepted, is not exactly mine.

Very good, huge,dense & fine off-white head over hazy copper-amber beer, finely carbonated. Intense nose, bit boozy as brandy, caramel. Some vegetables, banana. Huge head hampers nasal perception. Warming up, hint at turpentine. Dry, dusty, vegetable hops with some resins, pine. Oxydation, seems a bit prematurely aged. Finish are dry hopoils, with always some caramel, toasted malts, and preserved orange peel. Rather well-bodied, very hopoilslick, viscous. Medium carbonation. In the end, pleasing beer, but as a hoppy IPA, I would have favoured more bitter, citrussy notes.


2nd try Bottle date 20-07-22 Good just off-white head, dense, over hazy orangeish beer. Asafoetida, exotic fruit as passion fruit, grapefruit(peel), bit of wheat, Thai green eggplant. Dry-bitterish taste, but still with quite some restsugars. Again citrus & exotic fruit. Light to medium bodied, good carbonation, bit oily-slick. Quite good. Got +1 point for the nose.

Hazy session IPA by this new brewery in Mortsel near Antwerp; bottle straight from the brewery, but without a label, as apparently these hadn't arrived yet at the time of sending. Thick, pillowy, egg-white, irregularly lacing, uneven-bubbled but stable head on a cloudy straw blonde beer with warmer apricot tinge. Aroma of lime flesh, orange blossom, green banana, guava, white bread, unripe pineapple, hints of green bitter weeds, gypsum, halfripe nectarine, cherimoya, vague toasted onion. Crisp, fruity onset, sweetish but quite restrainedly so especially for a hazy IPA, lots of lively carbonation (actually too coarse and sharp for the style, but I'm not bothered by it too much); hints of green banana, green pear, vague pineapple, lime and guava. Supple mouthfeel, not too thin for only 3% ABV, nice white-bready and doughy maltiness with a soapy edge, aromatized by rather pronounced fruity hoppiness hinting at green guava, unripe mango, lime zest and a touch of pear, filling the nose cavity retronasally. Meanwhile a decent, bit peppery bitterness is also established, drying the finish and lending it body; ends a bit yeasty but in a cleanish way, with this spicy-powdery hoppiness lingering as well, next to fainter chalky and carbon dioxide notes, the latter obviously still coming from the carbonation. Overcarbonated, but otherwise not bad at all - especially for a foreign style in Belgium and for a beginning brewery; very quenching, colourful, convincingly hazy and fruity-aromatic, but not too sweet and fruit juice-like, unlike many other modern NEIPA style beers - and that is certainly a plus for me, even if this is not my favourite style. Promising for the rest of the range I have in stock, waiting to be explored...

Medium to huge, super-dense, ever-so-slightly yellowish head, stable, over fully hazy ochre to brown beer. Spicy impression upon pouring. Then the Mortselarij classic concrete builds up and not much less is there to be sniffed for a while - though grapefruit is so present that it cannot be ignored. Bit lactic, diary, too, buttermilk... but a bit warmed up it turns to diacetyl... aww. Bitter, bit hoppy, but also a very distinct flavour of other grains - no doubt the oats - that carries a dullish sweeter cookies note, and also conveys a rather creamy MF. Diacetyl is thankfully absent in the taste, even if it its just a tad buttery. Finish has dry grains. Creamy, medium to good carbonation, pretty slick. The diacetyl in the nose is truly a pity; the taste however is pleasing if certainly not as explosive as f.i. the Kitropiki.