4/VI/22 - bottle sample @ Maldegems Bierfestival, BB: n/a (2022-654) Thanks to Ama and Erwin for sharing today's beers!

Clear orange blond beer, small creamy to aery off-white head, a little stable, a bit adhesive. Aroma: very weird, dirty, very cheesy, yeast, lots of orange peel, oxidized, weird, meh. MF: lively carbon, medium body. Taste: weird, a bit sourish, bitter, dry, fruity touch, meh. Aftertaste: yeasty, unpleasant bitterness, floral notes, a little soapy, dry, some tannins, meh, don’t like it very much.

24/XII/21 - 75cl bottle from De Hopduvel (Gent), shared @ Christmas Eve at Arno & Meggy’s place, BB: XII/2023 (2021-1601)

Little cloudy blond orange beer, huge creamy off-white head, stable, adhesive, leaving a nice lacing in the glass. Aroma: lots of phenols, alcohol, brett notes, some whisky, some overripe fruits, bit chemical. MF: lively carbon, medium body. Taste: lots of brett (artificial maybe?), little funky, wood, whisky, little sweet, decent! Aftertaste: funky, sourish, bit lemony, brett notes, bit dry, very decent!

28 August 2021. At Bier van Ollier Festival, Sijsele. Cheers to Anke, mom, dad & Dirk!

Hazy yellow, thin, foamy, white head. Aroma of ripe plum, pineapple, apple, pear, vanilla, honey, vague butter, bourbon. Taste has sweet pineapple, plum & pear, bit buttery over honey maltinesss; spicy clove & a wheaty sourness in the back. Floral hoppy finish, spicy, yellow fruit, warming bourbon alcohol gives off vanilla effect. Medium body, oily texture, fizzy carbonation. Not as elegant as, say, the Barrel Aged versions of Het Nest's classic Ales; I think the whiskey (as opposed to whisky) is a tricky choice at that. Perhaps a bit too young too, but enjoyable in itself.

The first commercial beer from a hobby brewer located at the Dendermondsesteenweg in Ghent, named after his wife Hanne. Commercial production is done at Craywinckelhof - at least this guy is honest about that as this is clearly mentioned on the label (whether this BlommeCaes project then deserves a separate brewery entry on this website is open for debate). Steinie bottle from De Hopduvel. Thinnish, irregular and quickly opening, eggshell-white head, eventually reduced to a mousy ring (not quite looking like a typical 'tripel head', to be frank); hazy pale straw blonde robe with vague apricot tinge. Aroma of oxidized apple slices, damp straw, banana, stale lemon juice, old soggy white bread, coriander seed, camomile, pear juice, old potatoes, damp cloth, steamed cauliflower, young 'jenever', honey, brioche bread, Brussels sprouts sweating in hot butter, pineapple wedges. Fruity, sweetish onset, very lively carbonated with lots of fizz on the tongue but not overly 'coarsely' so, prominent sweet banana and pineapple esters, cooked apple, ripe pear; lingering residual sweetness over an essentially soft, bread-pulpy malt middle with slight soapy edge, established by - very likely - coriander seed, topped with a floral hoppiness that brings too little bitterness to the finish, but does add a refreshing, almost lemon-blossomy fruitiness retronasally. A warming glow of calvados-like alcohol ensues, while banana sweetness and a trace of floral hop bitterness linger, as well as a light bready yeastiness. More or less correctly executed (as usual with Craywinckelhof), but do we really need yet another sweet tripel for the masses? This is not really an asset for Ghent beer culture, especially considering the sheer limitless creativity demonstrated by the likes of Dok, Brouwbar, Totem or Humboldt & Gauss... Still, I heard this hobby brewer is quietly working on some more interesting concepts, so I will keep track of it nonetheless, if only because it's Ghent (where I live).

Bottle as a gift. Many thanks! Hazy golden colour, white foam. Citrussy, some sweet malts, some spices. Light tart, medium sweet. Some bitterness.