33 cl. bottle @ Alcatraz Festival 2023. Hazy golden with a big white head. Malty yeasty aroma with some hops. Sweet taste with a sweet finish. To call it an IPA, even a Belgian IPA, is too much but it certainly is a tasty Belgian blonde.

Bottle @ home. Unclear orange golden body under a nice, dense, white head. Aroma is more like a typical triple than wine. Pale malt, sugar and Belgium yeast. Taste is also rather classic triple with a faint hint of white vine and wood. Nice, elegant and classic triple with just a hint of grapes/vine.

Bottle shared, golden beer, small head. Large amount of floaty shit. Aroma is malt, sweet, hop. Taste is the same, sweer, bitter, weak

33cl can @ Mission Masala Ixelles.
BB 07/12/2023.
Dorée sur un léger voile pâle, col fin crémeux blanc.
Arôme est assez moyen sur de fins effluves de malts pâle, léger pils, rétro-nasal sur un fruité modéré tirant sur les agrumes.
Palais sur un léger caractère malté pâle, pils assez sec. Le houblonné et apporte un fruité agrumes, note de litchi, citron vert avec un fini sec marqué, acerbe sur pointe de fruit de la passion.

Tant au nez que en bouche, je n'ai pas vraiment été envoûté par cette bière et encore moins retrouvé la caractère de la cardamome.

Franky De Smet-Van Damme, lead singer of the Belgian metal band Channel Zero, successfully launched his first 'own' beer a few years ago (I was not in the least impressed by it but many others apparently were) and has recently extended the range of his Turbeau brand into several other beers, including this IPA. Steinie bottle from Drankenhal Van Callenberge, not mentioning the actual brewery anywhere; considering that there seem to be both longneck and steinie bottles of this beer on the market, I am wildly guessing that the first come from BeerSelect and the latter still from Strubbe, who brewed his first beer as well (Turbeau Noir) - so if this is correct, I can understand why the brewery is not disclosed, and I am the lucky one with the Strubbe version here in front of me... The Strubbe version seems to have preceded the BeerSelect version, from what I can find. Thick and frothy, snow white, intricately cobweb-lacing, rocky head, resting stable on an initially lightly misty yellow-golden blonde beer with dispersed dark yeast dots - usually not a good sign for anything with 'IPA' on its label; shifts to a deeper and hazy peach blonde further on (with even more visible yeast - a 'soup' effect, so to speak). Aroma of soggy old bread, raw potato, banana peel, cooked turnip, cold chamomile tea, clove, withering grass, moist white pepper, damp earth, apple peel and a very volatile solventy component (floor polish or something) which luckily vanished into thin air as quickly as it arose. Fruity onset in a restrainedly sweetish way, banana peel, apple peel and a touch of peach, moderately carbonated, with a vague sourish streak underneath; smooth, rounded but somewhat thinnish body. Cereally, soggy-bready malt core, pale maltiness with no further adornments, under continuing half-sweet fruitiness and rather 'dirty' yeastiness (as predicted by visual assessment), producing rogue phenols varying between clove and nutmeg to vague band aid. The hops, meanwhile, remain proportionally quiet - the opposite from what one would expect from an IPA - and even though they offer relatively little aroma (apart from dandelion, damp tree leaves and wet wood bluegrass), they do manage to produce a slight degree of hop burn in the end, something I would expect more from a NEIPA style 'hop soup' than a Belgian IPA. Leafy bitterness does linger, along with all that yeasty breadiness, solvents and spiciness. In itself drinkable enough and certainly not worse than many ordinary Belgian blondes of artisanal signature, but generally quite messy and 'dirty', lacking focus and - more dramatically perhaps - lacking hop aroma, in spite of those earthy and grassy elements it provides. Granted, this Turbeau IPA is more hop-forward than the ordinary Belgian blonde ale, but to call it IPA seems a bit of a stretch (even a Belgian one); this is one of those many cases of a Belgian beer trying to be hip by using the globally popular 'IPA' stamp but not having any idea of what true IPA is about nowadays. I think Mr. De Smet-Van Damme better sticks to what he does best, and that is to sing metal music - or talk to one of only few Belgian breweries capable of brewing an actual modern IPA (Totem, Uncharted, Source, Ermitage, whatever)...

Another self-proclaimed brewery (in Wallonia) remaining silent about where their beer is actually brewed, but much to their great credit as far as I am concerned, was honest enough to admit that this first beer of theirs is materialized in the kettles of BeerSelect. Big and foamy, pillowy, egg-white, busily shred-lacing, very dense and stable head on an initially crystal clear, warm and pure golden beer with lots of vivid sparkling, turning misty with a light ochre tinge in the end. Aroma of ripe banana, industrial white bread, croissants, fresh lemonbalm, hard peach, green pear, considerable iron (very much confirmed by the 'hand test'), powder sugar, grass, hints of plastic, dried chamomile and papier maché. Sweetish onset, banana ester with some pear and red apple notes, minerally carbonation adding a vague sourishness, smooth and lean mouthfeel; the added iron, very likely intended as a head stabilizer, is clear enough from the start and even rises up retronasally (iron pipes) over a slender cereally pale malt sweetish body with light bready edges. Floral and grassy hop bitterness joins in towards the end, but remains mild and friendly, in spite of being a bit 'stretched'; it fades away in the favour of the pale malts, cereals and banana ester, alas. Your plain and average Belgian blonde, a tad hoppier than the most 'commercial' examples perhaps, but not nearly hoppy enough to display true character and creativity - and making things worse, containing added iron which is hard to cover up in the first place but in this case comes to the foreground quite strongly (though I had even worse cases in the past). Needs a more 'artisanal' character even if this term means very little - in any case a more 'green' and genuine hop bitterness could be a way towards improvement. In this form: utterly forgettable, I am afraid.

Fluffy, bit greyish white head over rather big-bubbled clear golden beer. Nettles, wild hops, faint pale malts, and a few citrussy hops as well. Almonds in the background. Sweetish-chalky-green herbs. Bit fade. Well, more than a bit. Once the sweetness is gone, just a faint metallic bitterness remains. Mild carbonation, bit slick. A blonde than is hoppy in a small street? Sorry, but she misses beef to her bones. Txs to Stef!

Hazy amber colour, a lot of yeast flakes. Nose of peach, fruity, white wine, grapes. Rather sweet with a vinous finish.

pours clear, pale blonde. Scent is very malty, sweetish, banana. Taste is sharp, bit bitter, sweet maltyness. Bit banana. Very straight forward, simple and basic, but nothing majorly off.