Good dense, irregular white head, stable, over orangey golden, hazy beer. Oranges, preserved orange, Bourbon, whisky, molded orangepeel. Almonds, bitter & sweet, perfumed. Preserved oranges. Here, I'd rather guess jenever than Bourbon. Wormwood, but not that bitter. Medium bodied at least, viscous, bit oily despite good carbonation. I don't particulary care for this perfumed overdose, the combination Bourbon and oranges (coriander) doesn't seem to work, even when the base beer seems OK. Txs to Maarten!

Bottle. Pours an unclear, very hazy (yeasty?) darker blonde, with brown hints. As Verduyn is all about playing with colors ( read the full story online or in my review of their first beer, Black ) this is a bit dissapointing. Nevertheless, the brewer told me he's color it a bit more in future batches ( this is the first batch) . The coloring used here is juice made from beets, but he told me the taste shouldn't be beet-like . It's a spiced tripel with Coriander, lemonpeel, and half American, half Belgian hops. The foam is medium small and medium unstable. Scent is generic BE tripel, nothing bad about it, but nothing out of the ordinary. Isoamylacetate, citrus (from the lemonpeel , i suppose, but it presents itself more as, well, orange) Some coriander indeed ( not too much ) . Taste is full. Recognizable, has much similarities to their Black, actually. Similar maltbase, perhaps? This one a bit more pronounced, a bit more sweet, a bit more fullbodied. Actually a pretty darn nice tripel. Not overcarbed, not going into one boring direction. Nice bitter finish, but never overpowering. Even though this isn't a very specific beer ( which I had hoped for ) , it would be one of the few tripels i'd redrink regularly - the others all being standout and unique - . if anything is to be compared best, think Rochefort tripel, but less specifically rochefort. This one has similar bitter/sweet balance, body and carbo. As Rochefort triple is my new favorite tripel, this is quite an achievement to be compared to on a first attempt to this overly produced style. Hope they'll fix the color in future batches, and keep this nice balanced flavors. Very well brewed, but a bit out of concept.

Pours black. Stable, light colored head. Scent is malty, mild Belgian yeast. Taste is malty (pale malts, yes) with a relatively sweet base-taste. Belgian yeast is recognizable, but in balance. Hops are low, as is to style in a Belgian Blonde. SO, what's special than?

Appart from the nice style-technical aroma and taste, as well as balanced character, this Belgian Blonde is, well... Black. Its blackened not by malts, but by the addition of coconut shells which have been burned to a kind of Charcoal (called 'active coal' in Dutch, not sure if that translates the same in English). It colors the beer, but contributes little to none to the flavor. It's ment to be this way, since 'Verduyn Bier' wants to fool you.
As a contribution to his color blinded sons, Brewer Henk Verduyn wants to surprise your scenses, create an expectation upon the given color, and than make you taste something completely different.
Making all of us who are not colorblind, experience the weird feeling of not being able to rely upon color-based-expectations. I cheer to that, not only for the meaningfull story, but also since - being a bartender - i'm so sick of people thinking 'blonde' equals a flavor. Or the 'I don't like brown beer' folks.

Appart from all this, it's worth noting the color is indeed a gimmick. But even without the gimmick, only describing the taste and scent, as well as body, this is a style-technical very correct Belgian Blonde.

Good start for this company, who happens to have the same last name as I personally do (I am in no way connected to the brewery though) . I'll sure follow them and can't wait to see which mindboggling color VS taste beer they'll come up with next.