Pours dark, caramelly brown. Medium sized, creamy off white, stable head. Scent is mild caramel, mild toffee. Hints of roast. Taste is fairly full, supported by medium high carbo. Toffee up front, with hints of caramel, chocolate, roast ( ashy, but not quite) Medium body. Overall, OK. nothing out of the ordinary. Though I really appreciate a Belgian new brewer surpassing the old-school 13 in a dozen beers such as tripel / dubbel , as well as the new-money 13 in a dozen styles such as currently (wannabe) NEIPA. A for effort, and there's certainly nothing wrong with the beer, I just miss that certain extra for it to stand out between others Wee Heavy's, though all the ones I can think of are interantional, so as a belgian brewpub, are these comparancy's even fair ?

Pours a darker amber, unclear. Medium big white head. Scent is Malty, bit 'dull' due to the Spelt. Blindly, i'd think of a more stale reason ( age) but I've had this before in beers with Spelt. Taste is rather sweet, malt-forward. Quite some amount of banana esters, but not overkill just yet. Low amount of hops. Only get some balancing bitterness. Not bad.

Pours an unclear, hazed blonde. steady, medium sized cream-white head. Scent is clear on the wheat, milder hops, but certainly more hoppy than the wheat beers we know. Taste is fairly sharp, bitter, earhty/green hops ( Target style, which I like) . Clear wheat backbone. Medium to medium thin body. Medium to medium high carbo. Bit yeasty in the back, but fairly low on esters and phenols. Pretty nice, easy drinkin' white IPA

One of the first beers from this new microbrewery in Genk in the province of Limburg, with medium thick, pale grey-beige, mousy head, opening quickly but leaving a thin greyish veil in the middle, over a very dark chestnut brown beer, almost black but with still clearly visible hazy burgundy-red hue. Aroma of beef stock, hard caramel, liquorice, cloves, burnt blackcurrants, bayleaf, black toast, dried blackberries, dry earth. Sweetish onset, burnt sugar effect, dried figs and blackberries, medium carbonated; quite some beef stock-ish umami but also a bubblegummy edge. Hazelnutty, toffeeish maltiness with a hint of bitter chocolate to it, phenolic spicy notes, aspects of clove and – quite pronounced even – liquorice, before a roasty coffee grounds bitterness, earthy hops and some lingering bready yeastiness appear. Quite modern in concept, not bad for a starting Belgian microbrewery really – a porter with Belgian character, so to speak. Could do with a bit of cleaning up, more hops and a more ‘dense’ black maltiness, but surely very enjoyable for what it is.

11/VII/20 - 33cl bottle shared by Alengrin @ home, BB: 10/V/21 (2020-619) Thanks to Alengrin for sharing the bottle!

Clear dark brown to black beer, small creamy irregular beige head, little stable, non adhesive. Aroma: nice roast, charcoal, more roast, campfire, very malty, grains, yeasty, some phenols, some band-aid, if just a little. MF: soft carbon, medium to full body. Taste: good roast, some yeast, chocolate, caramel malts, bit sourish. Aftertaste: more of that nice roast, malty, grains, good bitterness, cocoa powder, hint of banana, slightly sweet.

Apparently the second beer already by this new brewing project in Genk in Limburg, with the ambition to become the city's 'stadsbrouwerij', including a tasting room that is to open soon and already organising brewing workshops under the Hoppa Bacchus moniker. Thick and frothy, irregularly lacing, snow white, mousy and stable head, remaining closed for a proportionally long time on top of a cloudy apricot blonde beer with ochre-ish tinge. Aroma of halfripe banana, ground old coriander seed (strongly so), sugar loaf, sweetclover, tonic water, white bread dough, candy apple, damp straw, fresh camomile and freshly cut ryegrass, wormwood leaves, hints of powder sugar on waffles, flour, pumice, heated cotton cloth, chewing gum and plaster. Fruity onset, banana ester mingled with impressions of pear, pineapple and peach, sweetish with a slightly honeyish effect of residual sugars lying thinly over a softishly carbonated, soft and 'fluffy', doughy and soapy malt body; the wheat is clear enough and adds a 'deeper', basic sourishness to the whole, but the breadiness of the barley remains equally pronounced. The out-of-place (over)dose of coriander seed pops up towards the end but contrasts a bit with a very firm, eventually very rooty and quinine-like, wormwoody and bitter plant-like hoppiness, a long, resinous bitterness dominating the finish, while offering classic European 'noble' impressions retronasally. Some bready and spicy yeastiness lies underneath, carrying some of the initial fruitiness into this bitterness, and there is even a very vague and very 'late' metallic note to be found somewhere at the back. Not a bad beer per se, but the concept of 'white IPA', explicitly mentioned on the label, is not well understood here: if I interpret the accompanying information from the brewer correctly, this is basically a witbier (with the usual coriander overdose) with strong but 'traditional' hop bitterness, something that does not originally occur in witbier. Like so many Belgians still have to learn, even experienced but traditionally oriented beer drinkers, is that 'hop bitterness' as such does not turn whatever beer into an IPA suddenly - I would never consider this a true IPA, unless of course you group all these new Belgian 'hopped up' beers of the past dozen years or so under a vague 'Belgian IPA' flag. In order for this Jan Withops to be a true white IPA, the coriander needs to be omitted, a cleaner Anglo-Saxon yeast strain needs to be used and New World hops need to be applied including dry-hopping - this beer has none of those features, so that it ends up as another 'bitter blonde'. The classification here as a 'white IPA' therefore has brewer's intent as its sole reason, but even then the question arises as to why the brewer says that, thanks to its subtle flavours, it will also appeal to non-IPA drinkers? Noch mossel, noch vis, is a Flemish saying that springs to mind here - but, as said, an enjoyable Belgian bitter blonde, if you can overcome the disappointment of being promised a white IPA and not getting one.