Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

33cl bottle from Spar supermarket in Oostende. F: huge, snow-white, long lasting. C: pale blonde, hazy. A: bit citrus, floral, spicy, hint of orange peels, yeasty. T: medium malty backbone, floral, ginger, bit mineral, citrus, yeasty, bit peppery, medium carbonation, very easy drinkable, not bad, enjoyed.
Earlier Rating: 3/18/2019 Total Score: 3.1
33cl bottle from Carrefour @ Cours St Michel in Brussels. F: huge, snow-white, long lasting. C: pale blonde, hazy with yeasty veils. A: bit citrus, floral, hint of orange peels, yeasty. T: light malty backbone, floral, citrus, yeasty, bit peppery, light to medium body, medium carbonation, very easy drinkable, not bad.

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7

Bottle from Spar, Ostend. Hazy yellow, small, frothy, white head. Aroma of wheat, citrus zest, hand soap, bath foam, yellow apple, coriander, cereal. Taste has sweetish apple, pear & apricot, sourish wheat, rather soapy but not disturbing, bit spicy (coriander) against a bready, cracker-like malty backbone. Grassy hoppy finish, lingering unripe fruit, spices & minerally salt. Medium body, slick texture, lively carbonation. Decent enough 'blondje' with soapy & spicy notes without them being cumbersome.

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5

Bottle from Spar Oostende. Hazy golden, small, white head. Aroma of banana liqueur, ripe apple, apricot, white bread, honey, flowers (daisy!), pineapple. Taste has sweet banana, pineapple & pear, the latter giving off a phenolic touch, but quickly drenched again in sweetness thanks to honey malts and even residual sugar. Bit wheaty sour in the middle, somewhat spicy, no apparent seaweed character. Spicy, floral hoppy finish, lingering ripe fruits and warming alcohol hinting at jenever. Medium body, oily texture, average carbonation. Not too bad for an average Tripel, but they should have taken the seaweed element a bit further.

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 6.5

The strongest of the three Seaking beers but the ‘smallest’ in terms of production volumes; allegedly brewed with seaweed in an attempt to evoke the seaside. Thick, egg-white, regularly shaped, dense and stable, tightly membrane-lacing head, initially clear deep and pure ‘metallic blonde’, old-gold robe with vivid sparkling, turning misty with sediment. Aroma of banana and banana bread, coriander seed, ‘oude jenever’, unripe peach, dry straw, sweet potatoes, dried field flowers, parsnip, parsley root and perhaps, indeed, a very faint salty-minerally accent in the background which I assume has to represent the maritime aspect of this beer. Sweetish fruity onset, clear banana ester mingled with hints at pineapple and halfripe pear, fizzy carbonation, minerally – but that more specific ‘salty’ minerality I thought I caught in the nose, remains all but absent; smooth and slick, full body, white-bready and lightly honeyish maltiness gently spiced by a pinch of coriander seed – after which a medium long, floral hop bitterness develops, slowly fading into the finish but lingering about when a warming, ‘jenever’-tinged alcohol glow appears. Standard Belgian tripel, very accessible, but also very correctly made without even the slightest trace of technical errors – which is something I can always appreciate, considering how many flawed local tripels are around these days. That said, my excitement about tasting a tripel with seaweed – and therefore changing the old standard tripel template with an interestingly far-fetched ingredient – was quickly gone, because seaweed is hardly noticeable here, if at all. I would have opted for a (modern) Gose-like saltiness instead, but I guess the brewer did not dare take the risk of presenting the unsuspecting, ordinary, macro-beer-drinking tourist at the Belgian seaside with something he probably would not be able to finish… --- Beer merged from original tick of Huisbier Seaking Tripel on 20 Oct 2020 at 12:31 - Score: Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6. Original review text: The strongest of the three Seaking beers but the ‘smallest’ in terms of production volumes; allegedly brewed with seaweed in an attempt to evoke the seaside. Thick, egg-white, regularly shaped, dense and stable, tightly membrane-lacing head, initially clear deep and pure ‘metallic blonde’, old-gold robe with vivid sparkling, turning misty with sediment. Aroma of banana and banana bread, coriander seed, ‘oude jenever’, unripe peach, dry straw, sweet potatoes, dried field flowers, parsnip, parsley root and perhaps, indeed, a very faint salty-minerally accent in the background which I assume has to represent the maritime aspect of this beer. Sweetish fruity onset, clear banana ester mingled with hints at pineapple and halfripe pear, fizzy carbonation, minerally – but that more specific ‘salty’ minerality I thought I caught in the nose, remains all but absent; smooth and slick, full body, white-bready and lightly honeyish maltiness gently spiced by a pinch of coriander seed – after which a medium long, floral hop bitterness develops, slowly fading into the finish but lingering about when a warming, ‘jenever’-tinged alcohol glow appears. Standard Belgian tripel, very accessible, but also very correctly made without even the slightest trace of technical errors – which is something I can always appreciate, considering how many flawed local tripels are around these days. That said, my excitement about tasting a tripel with seaweed – and therefore changing the old standard tripel template with an interestingly far-fetched ingredient – was quickly gone, because seaweed is hardly noticeable here, if at all. I would have opted for a (modern) Gose-like saltiness instead, but I guess the brewer did not dare take the risk of presenting the unsuspecting, ordinary, macro-beer-drinking tourist at the Belgian seaside with something he probably would not be able to finish…

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5

The brown one in this small series of coastal beers by Huisbier in beautiful De Haan, and apparently the only one not containing a 'maritime' ingredient (as the blonde one contains sea salt and the tripel contains seaweed), so one can wonder what the point of this beer is... Anyway, bottle from a butchery in De Haan, Le Coq, which sells all the Huisbier products apart from fine meat products. Thick and frothy, intricately 'Brugse kant'-like lacing, pale yellowish beige, very mousy and stable head on an initially near clear, deep bronze-brown beer with copper to even ruby red hue, turning misty with a more amberish tinge with sediment. Aroma of crumbled dry cookies, hard caramel, coriander powder, old raisins, dried apple peel, nutmeg, clove, Ersatz chocolate ('koetjesreep'), brown bread crust, zwetschge prunes, toasted pecan nuts, vague hints of iron and dry earth. Fruity onset but less sweet than expected, quite on the dry side for this style in fact, hinting at dried dates and old raisins with a faint dash of apple peel, lively carbonated with minerally effects, slick mouthfeel, a tad resinous perhaps. Rounded caramelly but again not very sweet maltiness, brown bread crust and ground pecan nuts, developing quite some toasty bitterness as it progresses, while phenolic effects of clove and nutmeg are added; something metallic lurks on its edges as well, just a little bit too much so for me. Ends with ongoing caramel-without-sweetness-maltiness, toastedness and dried-fruitiness, while coriander seed provides a soft spicy aspect and hops provide lingering tree-leafy bitterness, more so than is usually the case in a dubbel, at least the more 'macro-brewed' ones. A vague hint of bitter and herbal bayleaf is discernable as well. Bit too metallic for its own good, clearly, but otherwise just a simply decent Belgian 'bruin', with well-measured spiciness, subdued fruitiness and full-fledged dryish maltiness, almost (Dutch) bokbier-like.

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

One of the three core beers of this client brewer in Klemskerke near De Haan at the Belgian seaside, brewed with sea salt. Steinie bottle from butchery Du Coq in De Haan. Quite some pressure and a hissing sound during opening, but no gushing. Irregularly shaped, very frothy and pillowy, eggshell-white, intricately 'Brugse kant'-like lacing head on a misty deep yellow blonde beer with apricot hue and strings of sparkling here and there. Aroma of clear and near-fresh ginger root (why is this not mentioned in the ingredients list?), coriander seed, green pear, banana peel, white bread, unripe peach, clove, raw white cabbage and indeed a vague background note of wakame (fresh green seaweed) which I assume represents the sea salt. Crisp, fruity onset, sweetish but not sweet, green pear and apple notes mixed with halfripe banana and a touch of unripe apricot, fizzy and notably minerally carbonation; a very light salty touch appears at the sides, enhanced by the minerally effect of the carbon dioxide, but fades quickly as well. Clean pale malt profile, white-bready and cereally, rounded, spiced up with the ginger and coriander effects that are so apparent in the nose, very ethereal and spicy, initially overruling a floral hop bitter accent which nevertheless develops further on in the finish. All in all, your standard Belgian blonde with a spicy ginger touch, which draws a lot more attention than that pinch of sea salt that was apparently thrown in. Technically correctly brewed though, I can see myself drinking another one of these next time I'm having a relaxed moment at the shore in beautiful De Haan.

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 4 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 3

10/III/20 - 33cl bottle as a gift, shared @ lunch tasting, BB: IX/2021 (2020-247) Thanks to Johan VC for the bottle!

Clear gold blond beer, big creamy solid off-white head, little stable, bit adhesive, leaving some lacing in the glass. Aroma: nori seaweed, bit malty, spicy, yeast, a bit off. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: sweet and very sugary, ripe banana, malty, spicy, some alcohol, weird. Aftertaste: metallic, very sugary, spicy touch, rather unpleasant, way too sweet, yeast, pretty bad. Don’t like it...

Imported from untappd on 02-05-2020

Imported from untappd on 02-05-2020

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6

Bottle in De Bierboom, Brugge on 14th May 2018. Rudy, the proprietor of De Bierboom is actually one of the four Monks who brews 'De Vier Monniken' beers. This is a very pale golden brew, white crown on top. Light yeast and citrus leanings in both the nose and taste, a summer beer garden brew.