No head, deep cola coloured beer. Heavy whisky nose, notes of young oak, Whisky sour, citrus and turning retronasal into a whisy bomb. Lean, little carbonation and serious alcoholburn and -thinning. Original flavour. A serious note @ Timothy, first get your basic beers in order, then go barrel aging, one might think the latter serves as covering up.

No head, dirty amber beer, still. Raisins, alcohol, fusels, sweet grape liqueur. White Portwine, typical features of fortified wine, whisky, sultanas. Still, dead, alcoholheat and syrupy feel. Special beer but the opposite of easy drinkable. First decent basic beers, then barrel aging

Small rim over almost black beer. Light Bourbon nose, light vanilla, straw seeped in alcohol. Bourbon, furious alcohol, bit of maltsyrup, raisins, vanilla. There is a slight sourish-lactic lining which spoils nothing. Furious alcoholheat and ditto -thinning. The sourish lining raises this one above pure alcoholpunch level. Still, first decent basic beers, then barreling.

Good head, slowly dwindling to red-amber beer. Alcohol, solvent, plywood, raisins, and strong notes as from white Portwine. White Port, fortified wine, raisins, maltsyrup - if quite refined - , rum. Furious alcoholheat and -thinning. No carbonation whatsoever. Punch-in-the-face, if not bad. Still, first make decent basic beers, then go barreling.

Slow gushing to off-white, towering head over pale, veiled golden beer. Towering head completely hampers any nasal perception. Sweet alcohol, sweet malts, dry powdery spices. Let me guess: chaptalised? The gushing, the thinnish MF, the sweetness, all boxes are ticked. 'nuff said.

gusher

Blonde tripel by this family-owned Limburg hobby brewery gone commercial in December 2019, one of their first two beers, the other being - wait for it - an amber coloured tripel because hey, why even think of brewing an IPA, stout, sour or even a 'donkere' if you can vary on the old tripel theme and thereby stay safely in your comfort zone, right? For all clarity: I am being sarcastic here, there are way too many tripels in Belgium already as it is, and a microbrewery presenting itself with no less than two different tripels instead of something original does not impress me one bit anymore - but maybe I have become a bit too cynical after all those years of beer tasting, who knows... Anyway: beaten egg-white, frothy, irregularly but 'plastery' lacing, mousy, thick and - for ABV - remarkably stable head, sustained by enthusiastic sparkling rushing through a misty apricot blonde beer with deeper peachy tinge. Aroma of freshly cut apples, bubblegum, white bread, dried apple peel, ripe peach, melon or even a touch of 'meloenjenever', dust, dried camomile, candyfloss, coriander seed, bath foam, banana milkshake, cotton, strawberry juice hint, honey, vague gingerbread, methylated spirits, Poire William (including the pear aspect), something very vaguely sweaty when warming up (sweaty feet). Sweet onset but not overly cloying, bubblegummy banana ester with side notes of ripe pear, peach and melon, lively carbonated in a spritzy, minerally way, supple and slick body - feeling lighter than its ABV would suggest; smooth cereally pale malt sweetish core with a very light caramelly touch to it, carrying the fruitiness to a mildly spicy finish - the old coriander seed of course - with a dash of floral hop bitterishness, but also bearing the weight of quite some residual, honeyish sweetness. Ends too sweet as a result, the sweetness being accentuated by the alcohol, which grows into an again wodka- and even 'meloenjenever'-like presence, weighing heavily on the root of the tongue, but turning into unpleasant wryness only for a relatively brief moment. Still, I can feel the alcohol physically going down my throat, as if someone poured a shot of raw, white, industrial alcohol in my glass. Tripels as a genre do reach ABV levels of upwards of 10% every now and then, and like this one (at no less than 11%, at least according to the label), most of them fall into unpleasant booziness and annoying, tedious sweetness. Same story here, but admittedly the alcohol does not do violence to the overall flavour before the finishing phase - in other similar cases, it often forces itself onto the beer in a much too early stage. This is not my beer at all, way too sweet and too boozy, but I do wonder how the barrel aged beers that this Vandijck initiative is working on now, will turn out - so who knows, maybe I'll keep an eye on this brewery after all. I will, however, pass for the amber version of Slijkvisser, I'm afraid.

Pours a tad unclear, lighter amber or darker blonde. Small white head fades fast. Intense aroma that is noticably unfresh for a beer this young. Tad cheesy, hints of DMS, perhaps a light yeaststress as well? definately isovaleric acid though. Isoamyl acetate (banana esters) shine trough as well, but are overpowered by the aspects mentioned above. Taste is sharp. Thin body and higher carbonation ( a crowd pleaser, but no Kraddel Pleaser ), stressed yeast, isovaleric acid. Mild DMS, i keep thinking, yet thats the one i'm most unsure of, since it's the lightest in the balance. A nice level of bitterness that isn't bound to the beer that well, and enhances the sharpness, pointing towards sourness (which it isn't) .

Perhaps a few things could be improved here. Fresher ingredients, better fermentation control, an open, rolling boil of sufficient time, and more malts (leaving more body and even a hint of sweet to pair the bitterness better ) would be a good start. The beer also seems to lack (desired) aroma of both malts and hops, leaving all the more playground for off-flavors to shine. Maybe a few aromatic malts, and a late or even whirlpool hop adition , might bring a different balance to the beer.