28/VIII/21 - 33cl bottle from Willems (Grobbendonk), shared @ summer holiday in France, BB: 3/VI/22 (2021-981)

Little cloudy pale yellow beer, small creamy white head, stable, bit adhesive. Aroma: lots of citrs, fruity, floral, little soapy, sweet impression. MF: ok lively carbon, medium body. Taste: citrus, bit sourish, lemony, pretty bitter, hoppy, bit soapy. Aftertaste: fruity, bit sourish, oxidized, soapy, malty, gentle bitterness, honey, a bit oxidized.

Golden to orange in colour with thin head. Fine carbonation. It's an unusual taste. Something of orange peel and quite sugary sweet too.

Dark brown and clear with thin head. Aroma and flavour have a surprisingly high level of dark bittersweet malts. Little hints of bitter cacao.

Clear yellow colour with thin head. It's a sweet pilsener although the ingredients don't mention any added sugar.

Straw blond with light haze and thin foaming head. Lots of grain in the aroma. Flavour has a citrus tang. Wheaty and quite dry which is a pleasant change for this often too sweet style.

Hazy orange body. White fizzy head. Nose of orange, hops, ... lightly bitter flavour. Ok.

'Unofficial' abbey ale referring to Adrian of Nicomeda, linked to the municipality of Geraardsbergen - I fail to see a link with Leuven where this beer is brewed, but anyway. Very thick and foamy, rocky (tetra hops extract?), eggshell-white, audibly crackling, tightly cobweb-lacing, stable head on an initially crystal clear, pale 'metallic' golden beer with fierce sparkling, very champagne-like; turns into a misty yellow blonde with sediment. Aroma of ripe banana, freshly baked white bread, green apple (acetaldehyde), plaster, chewing gum without the sweetness, dry straw, cold camomile tea, minerals, flour, hard green pear, hint of mud or damp earth. Crisp, fizzy onset, strong (over)carbonation adding sourness and a numbing effect to a basically sweetish fruitiness filled with banana ester (isoamylacetate), green apple, pear and unripe (non-sweet) pineapple; slick, lean body, but harshened by the overcarbonation. Wheaty-sourish and -soapy middle with a light-footed white-breadiness, ongoing banana and apple effects, slightly honeyish and sweetish but not overly so, simply moving on to a rather disappointing finish in which not much else happens apart from a floral hop bitter touch and increasing spicy phenols (clove, very vague eucalyptus). White bread sweetishness, banana and apple remain the dominant factors. A bit of a bummer: very simplistic, bland and 'levelled' in flavour, clean and straightforward but not leading anywhere; dramatically lacks character, this is like an industrial pale lager trying to upscale itself by being a so-called 'abbey ale'. Apparently intended to evoke the character of Rhine wines (with beer professor Delvaux joining forces) and even if I do see what they mean, I am still bored to death here - and the harsh overcarbonation does not help. Putting the name of a largely forgotten saint (except for Geraardsbergen I suppose) on the label of an all too easy 'doordrinker' blonde, regardless of its admittedly interesting intentions, does not often result in an interesting beer. I truly hope this resurrected Breda brewery at least does the old Peterman tradition justice, because this one for me fails to impress.

Now here is an interesting one: Leuven revivalist Brouwerij Breda presenting this Peeterman as one of their core beers, something which immediately drew my attention when I first heard about it earlier this year. The name 'Peeterman' or 'Pieterman' in itself was the nickname of the inhabitants of old and proud Leuven, linked to the 10th-century Sint-Pieters church as the heart of the city, but metonymically also refers to the style of wheat ale that was brewed there, a 'thicker' and stronger brother of Hoegaarden's witbier, with a sourish character (which the 'real' witbier also had, historically at least). This historical wheat ale style enjoyed great popularity in and around Leuven from the 16th to the 19th century but, like indeed Hoegaarden's witbier of Bavaria's Weissbier, went into decline in the 20th century when standard pale lager conquered the Belgian beer drinking population - the last brewery producing 'a' Peeterman, as this name is to be seen as a generic name and not a brand name, was De Eendracht, where it was made until 1974. The great Michael Jackson, in his immensely influential pioneering work of describing the old European beer styles and traditions, claimed to have been searching for this beer a year later after hearing that the central station's cantina still had some stock left - only to find that it had already gone by then. Artois, the Stella brewer and historical 'core' of what has meanwhile evolved into AB InBev, did make an attempt to relaunch a Peeterman onto the market in the eighties, but discontinued it soon after, focusing on their then recently acquired Hoegaarden Witbier instead. So, in the absence of a living tradition and thus the absence of a Peeterman style category on this site, I had to classify this new embodiment of Leuven's old city beer by Brouwerij Breda as a witbier because this is the closest living relative of it, but I could just as well have picked 'traditional ale' or perhaps even 'gruit', with which both Peeterman and witbier share a common ancestry; in any case I think it is important to stress that this extinct genre of Brabantian wheat ale has its own history and its own pedigree, parallel to Hoegaarden's witbier - so it should not be judged as a copy of Hoegaarden and its offspring, but as a separate kind of beer with no living frame of reference. Produces a lot of towering, egg-whithe, nicely cobweb-lacing, bit irregular foam during pouring, slowly retreating later on but nevertheless remaining thick and completely closed forever, on top of a lightly hazy, deep and warm 'old gold' beer with orange hue and enthusiastic sparkling. Aroma of dried lemon zest, a sprinkle of lime even, bread crust, lemon thyme, rusk, dry strawbales, freshly cut red apple, halfripe banana, hints of sourdough, dried apricot, clove, dried sage. Crisp, fruity onset, green apple and lime sourishness in a gentle, mild, straightforward but very pleasant and refreshing way, next to sweeter notes of peach and banana; finely tingling but generally softish carb, slick mouthfeel with that typical wheat soapiness to it - the wheat also contributing to the yeasty sourishness, but again balanced by rusk- and bread crumb-like barley. Fruity notes and this zesty, zingy yet mild sourness continue into a bready, restrainedly spicy-phenolic finish, where subtle impressions of sage, thyme and clove return, followed by a floral, 'deep' but gentle hop bitterness; the sour aspect of the beer, however mild and 'thin', stretches even a bit further than this into the finish, making it the lasting impression, with almost citrusy, but in any case fruity character. This is an absolutely lovely beer - I am not witbier's biggest fan generally speaking even if I can appreciate a well-made artisanal one from time to time, but as said, this is not witbier, this is Peeterman... I sadly never had the Artois version from the eighties, but this Breda interpretation certainly matches the main characteristics of the historical Peeterman I read about (too bad, though, that for such a historically ambitious beer no more details are provided concerning the ingredients used); I do think that this one is a lot cleaner and less 'wild' and sour than the 'Peetermannen' of previous centuries, but it certainly gives a good general idea of what it must have been like. Too bad that a time machine does not exist, so I'll have to judge this based on my general enjoyment and the pure 'book knowledge' I have of the style: a credible example in its main features, and more importantly, a beer of elegance and finesse, more so than any of the other Breda beers - clearly this one is their flagship brew and by far their most relevant contribution to the still expanding Belgian beer world. I am convinced, however, that in this day and age where sour beer styles have not only been rediscovered but often even worshipped by beer geeks, the long forgotten Peeterman may very well experience something of a revival, if executed by the right people. I'll happily drink another one to that. Cheers Leuven!

One of the staple brews from this new brewery in Leuven, which actually tries to at least spiritually revive a local brewery of the same name that has existed there from the 17th century till the seventies; this 'special ass' (quote the brewery) attempts to revive the waning 'spéciale belge' genre and indeed the combination of the 25 cl bottle, the name and the colours of the label do remind one of Palm Spéciale, one of the classics in this old style of Belgian amber ales. Pale greyish white, strongly shred-lacing, medium thick, mousy, slowly breaking head over a clear (filtered), very deep and 'autumny' pure copper red beer with vermillion tinge - darker and more red than most actual 'spéciales belges' in fact. Aroma of hard caramel candy in a non-sweet way (paradoxically perhaps), ground pecan nuts and even walnut shells, dried cranberries, wet dark green tree leaves, clear (and unexpected) bath foam and lavender soap note, cloves, very subtle hints of halfripe banana and damp earth, even very vague liquorice-like phenols echoing in the background. Sweetish and sourish onset, quite crisp with lively, but for this genre perfectly aligned carbonation adding clear minerally effects; hints of medlar, apple peel, dried fig and dried cranberry with very vague notes of banana peel and rosehip, over a somewhat resinous, slender body; very pecan-nutty and hard-caramelly, but not sweet malt core with a toasty bitterish edge (if gently so), the latter reinforced a bit by a herbal, almost tea-ish, mildly peppery hop bitterness, while clove- and lavender-like spice effects linger on, with a vaguely soapy character - that however manages to remain undisturbing, to me at least. The sourish undercurrent remains till the end, more outspokenly so than is typically the case in a 'spéciale belge', but then the malt bitterness (and visual darkness in pure EBC values) is also more developed than in the classic spéciale belge, almost to the point where this has the malt profile of a German Alt from the Düsseldorf region. Still, in its top-fermented phenolic profile clearly a Belgian, or should I say Brabantian amber ale indeed, but one with a bit more 'malt power' and character than the 'larger' examples that still survive to this day; I think this specific substyle of Belgian ale still has some potential to be rediscovered and reinvented by the craft beer movement, like so many old European beer styles that have largely missed the American craft beer train. This one could be a good starting point for that; it tastes old-fashioned (something I guess you can only seriously assess if you have been drinking Belgian beer as long as I have), but it still has an own, distinct character to it. Very likeable, more so than I was expecting, to be honest.

One of the first commercial beers by Brouwerij Breda in Leuven, a resurrection of an ancient brewery there with the same name, that has allegedly been active from the early 17th century till the seventies, when it was taken over by Artois (the original 'core' of AB InBev) and then closed - one of those many examples of valuable small breweries that got lost in the 20th-century carousel of acquisitions. This one represents the 'ordinary', familiar witbier in the range, but I would not take the 'old Leuven recipe' too literally: it is true that Leuven has a long tradition of witbiers just like e.g. Hoegaarden, but the original witbier variant there was Peterman - not coincidentally another beer by this renewed Breda brewery. This 'Blondor' on the other hand is clearly made according to the Hoegaarden template, including the coriander seed and curaçao spicing that were added to Hoegaarden witbier by Pierre Celis in the late sixties. Anyway: mousy, snow white, fizzy head, quickly opening and dissolving into a thin ring, over a hazy straw blonde beer with apricot hue. Aroma of dried out white bread, strong coriander seed indeed, soap (wheat!), banana, unfortunately very pronounced DMS (overcooked white cabbage), ripe pear, cloves, candied lemon peel and some lemon zest, raw potato, honey. Sweetish onset with very strong isoamylacetate (banana), mixed with notes of pear, peach and pineapple, medium carbonation, supple and evidently 'witbier-soapy' mouthfeel; pleasant bready malt core though quite thinly so, softened by the oats and soured by the wheat, the latter also adding a soapy effect as is to be expected from the genre. Before long, a strong coriander seed effect turns up, colouring the finish along with indeed a dried citrus peel 'fraîcheur' - the typical combo one expects from the style, matching well with the wheat soapiness, lingering bready yeasty effects and a very mild, but structurally important floral hop bitter touch. Too bad for that DMS - I am really very sensitive to it - but ignoring that flaw, this is admittedly a refreshing, elegant wheat beer, one that matches the old Hoegaarden standard, but with a more 'artisanal' feel to it - even though everything remains very accessible and predictable for a Belgian wit. Not too bad, but I am mostly looking forward to that Peterman, if only for 'intellectual' (beer history) reasons.