Dark honey beer brewed in what was previously a water mill, located in Massemen, part of Wetteren, southeast of Ghent. Steinie bottle from the Carrefour supermarket of Oostakker. Opens with a mean hiss and gushes lightly, so open carefully. Thick and frothy, intricately cobweb-lacing, pale beige, moussy head on a very dark, hazy mahogany brown beer with ruddy edges. Aroma of wet toast, dried fig, brown honey, sweetly scenting roses (a typical side effect in artisanal honey beers), brown bread crust, autumn leaves, freshly grated nutmeg, dust, hints of dried apple peel, chewing gum, damp earth or even forest floor, pan-fried chanterelles with brown sugar, mud, baker's yeast. Fruity, sweetish onset with sourish edge, the sourish aspect heavily accentuated by very sharp, numbing (over)carbonation distracting from the actual flavours; hints of medlar, banana, fig and pear do come through, before the maltiness sets in, with hard caramel, brown bread crust and wet toast upfront; the honey provides a flowery, 'rural', meadow-like effect, matching with a thin trace of dark sugars more than with the bitter-toasty aspect of the malts - but the sweetness of dark sugars in this particular case comes from lactose apparently, which luckily does not dominate too much as I do not see it working well in this type of beer if it had been any more outspoken. Bitterness is further established by an earthy hoppiness, but the sweetness remains equally strong; ends very earthy, with lots of yeasty phenolics (clove, nutmeg) and breadiness, and reinstating the damp forest floor and dead tree leaf effects from the nose. Very earthy, yeasty and 'leafy', almost a Walloon style 'brune', but feeling quite genuine and honest as well. Not too shabby: thoroughly Belgian in style, with an acceptable level of complexity. Too bad for the overcarbonation, though: if this can be toned down a bit, I am sure the flavours will come out much better.

@Brouwers in het bos 2022

19/IV/22 - 33cl bottle from Geers (Oostakker), shared @ home, BB: 5/XI/22 (2022-383)

A little cloudy orange blond beer, big solid white head, stable, a bit adhesive. Aroma: oh my, that’s Belgian yeast all right, some alcohol, ripe banana, a bit oxidized, almonds, sweet impression. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: very yeasty, peppery, apples and pears, spicy. Aftertaste: a bit sourish, orange peel, oxidized, yeasty, spicy, more orange peel, a little malty, wheat maybe? More apples, a bitter touch, lots of orange peel, coriander in the finish. Curious where all those homegrown hops went...