Bottle at home, 9th June 2024. Pours a slightly cloudy straw blond. Aroma is yeast, citrus, fruits, floral. Taste is yeasty, sweet and bitter, floral, esters, lovely

Three-grain tripel (barley, wheat and oats) flavoured with heather blossoms created as a tribute to Marc Gallant, the former abbot of the Achelse Kluis abbey who decided in 1998 to recreate the Achel trappist beer brand (which had been discontinued since the First World War); last year, after the departure of the last trappist monk, Achelse Kluis ‘de facto’ ceased to be a trappist abbey and the whole operation, including the brewery, became a secular one, run by entrepreneur Jan Tormans. It was his idea to pay tribute to Marc Gallant with this flavoured tripel, shared with Craftmember and Jo at home. Thick and foamy, egg-white, pillowy, plaster-like lacing head over an initially clear, pure ‘old golden’ beer with lively sparkling everywhere and pale orangey glow, turning misty further on. Aroma of drying white bread, ripe pear, young ‘graanjenever’, field flowers (or indeed dried heather blossoms), linseed, green apple, halfripe banana, wet white pepper, clove, honey. Sweetish, fruity onset, hints of pear, apple and banana again but not over the top, with some honeyish residual sweetness persisting over a smooth, fizzily carbonated middle, built from sweetish pale malts with a light wheaty slickness and indeed oaty velvetiness supporting it. Notable floral, herbaceous notes in the end – some natural clove-like phenol, but also the heather flowers, perhaps not easily recognisable as such but certainly recognisable as an added ‘florality’ in general, matching with a gentle floral hop bitterness. Warming ‘jenever’-like alcohol ensues, heating the throat a bit – and frankly becoming just a tad too astringent. Sparkly, spicy, warming tripel reminiscent of Tripel Karmeliet in more than one way; the heather flowers add a delicate but quite noticeable floweriness and herbalness to it all, but the alcohol could have been better hidden even at this ABV. Solid tripel for sure, but not quite a match for the former Achel Extra Blond or Achelse Zomer, (more or less) equally strong tripels created when Achelse Kluis was still a trappist brewery (even if the actual brewing was done by laymen).

Bottle. Color: Clear golden, white head. Aroma: Malty, floral. Taste: Malty, subtle floral and herbal / spicy notes of the heather. Hoppy backbone. Moderate sweet, light to moderate bitterness. Medium body, average carbonation. Nice.

5/IV/24 - 33cl bottle from Geers (Oostakker), shared @ Barjac (FR), BB: 2/VIII/25, 123069 12:40 (2024-206)

Clear gold blond beer, dense creamy white head, unstable, falls down quickly, a little adhesive. Aroma: nice, pretty fruity, a little yeasty, some chlorine, a bit oxidized, quite some orange peel. MF: lively carbon, medium body. Taste: a bit sweet up front, banana, gentle bitterness, lots of oranges, a little spicy. Aftertaste: a bit oxidized, malty, sweet touch, yeasty, some alcohol, gentle bitterness, ok but a bit too sugary.