sample @ Bruges Beer Festival 2019 day 2. F: big, tan, not long lasting. C: black to amber, light hazy. A: mellow fruity, spicy, but whisky, red fruits, yeasty. T: medium malty backbone, mellow fruity, some woody tones, medium body and carbonation, not bad yet bit too on the sweet side for me.

2nd Feb 2019, Brugge Bier Festival. Misty brown/deep amber, the head a fast fading off-white affair. Malty aroma with a hint of Whisky and wood. taste also malty sweet again with a touch of Whisky and wood within the flavours. Boozy and a little too sweet, my sweet tooth loved it though!

Imported from my RateBeer account as Bryggja Aristide (by Bryggja):
Aroma: 5/10, Appearance: 3/5, Taste: 5/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 10/20, MyTotalScore: 2.6/5

2/II/19 - 33cl bottle @ Brugs Bierfestival, BB: n/a - (2019-150) Thanks to the Belgian ratebeer crew for sharing todays' beers!
Clear dark brown beer, creamy irregular beige head, pretty stable, non adhesive. Aroma: Very unpleasant, smells dirty, yeasty, autolyse?, something rotten. Gets better when left to stand for a while, getting more spices, liquorish, dried fruits, caramel, soft roast. MF: lively carbon, medium body. Taste: soft roast up front, weird soapy flavour, more roast, grains, cow fodder, pretty bitter. Aftertaste: bit soapy, metallic, unpleasant, ver roasted, bit chemical, very bitter and dry finish.

Imported from untappd on 02-05-2020

Imported from untappd on 02-05-2020

24 November 2018. 5de Winters Bierfestival Waregem. Deputy Taster: Anke. Hazy brown/amber with a lasting, thin, foamy, off-white head; little lacing. Aroma of walnut, oak, whisky, cookie dough, cinnamon, calvados, plum, caramel, earth. Taste is medium malty sweet, very caramelly, subtler hints of dough & plum; light to medium herbal bitter, spicy too with cinnamon & clove but balanced by a woody touch & some smoky whisky popping up, perhaps even a hint of toast. Dryish, herbal & peppery hoppy finish, lingering caramel & those omnipresent spices, warming whisky alcohol. Medium body, slick, almost syrupy texture, soft carbonation. More drinkable than its little brother Roedolph, still somewhat out of balance.

One of several occasional beers made in small batches for CVOSG, an adult education project in Bruges. Like the two previous occasions, brewed at Bryggja; this latest version is apparently intended as an IPA and was only sold at CVOSG itself and only to its employees and students – but it was effectively sold no matter how limitedly, so I guess it deserves an entry on this website. Thanks to Jonathan – a CVOSG employee – for the bottle! Thick and foamy, egg-white, very frothy, lacing head head over lightly hazy, deep and warm amberish orange blonde beer with vague rosy tinge and strings of fierce sparkling. Aroma of dusty old herbes de Provençe, pumpkin pie spices, cardamom even, paprika, bread crust, old cheese rind, herb cheese, dried tomato peel, thyme, persimmon, vague but ‘naturally’ feeling iron. Dryish onset, restrained fruitiness of dried persimmon, apple peel and orange zest, light sourish accent, minerally side notes, well-carbonated. Smooth, bit resinous cracker- and bread crust-like maltiness with vague metallic edges, leading to a spicy finish – with a much more old grandmother’s spice rack effect than a ‘new’ citrusy IPA effect, old orange peel notes aside; I get the same cardamom seed and dried thyme impressions that were already prevalent in the nose. Still quite hoppy, though, with a long-stretched, dried wormwood-like bitterness to it; also cheesy aspects of hops having passed their prime. A bit too old already, but more importantly: weirdly spicy, like some Belgian spice ale more than an IPA, its relative ‘cleanness’ (non-yeastiness) aside. Nothing unpleasant, just not really an IPA, like so many other Belgian attempts at this commercially successful style (or group of styles) these days.

The 'ordinary' Belgian blonde in Bryggja's range, steinie bottle from Willems in Grobbendonk. Gusher, but lacking trust in this one, I opened it very slowly over the sink and managed to reduce the loss to a few millilitres. Coarse and foamy, eggshell-white, rather irregular, moussy head remaining closed for quite some time and leaving some traces of papery lacing over a hazy, pale orangey-tinged 'old gold' coloured beer with some large bubbles rising up from the bottom; shifts to a deep, more ochre-orange-hued mistiness with sediment. Somewhat weird aroma, perfumey and malty, notes of old lemons, bergamot, star anise, bath foam, unripe pineapple, green apple, banana, fresh mint leaves, orange juice, honey, toilet soap, stale sweat, damp hay, watermelon, strawberry, hints of ripe pear, ladies' perfume, meringue, lavender-scented hand soap, canned peaches, old bread. Crisp, fruity onset, lots of bubblegummy banana ester as expected, notes of pear, pineapple and melon, sweet with a deeper sourish edge, very lively carbonation, very minerally and stinging quite fiercely (a mouth filled with fizz really), marring an otherwise supple, lean mouthfeel. Bready malts with a strong soapy wheat factor underlie ongoing Belgian esters and phenols in a somewhat disordered manner, leading to a suddenly very bitter finish, harshly tonic water-like, rooty and very expressively (yellow) grapefruity, stopping the initial perfumey and fruity-spicy sweetness in a remarkably abrupt way. This grapefruit bitterness lasts for a long time, becoming rather wry in the end and impairing drinkability, though much of the wheat soapiness, barley breadiness and fruity esteriness passes through more or less unscathed. An attempt at making the old familiar, boring Belgian blonde more hop-forward under international IPA pressure I assume, but this kind of harsh, rooty, quinine- and wormwood-like leaf bitterness hardly saves the day - if Bryggja would have understood what this international trend is about, they would have incorporated more aromatic hoppiness in this one, rather than creating expectations with colourful (though in this case suspiciously perfumey) fragrance and then ruining this with a blunt yellow grapefruit juice- and Schweppes-like bitterness. I have nothing against hoppy beers whatsoever, but the Anglo-Scandinavian innovations in beer of the past thirty-odd years have amply shown that there are much more elegant ways to convey this idea than whatever has happened here. Don't get me wrong, though: this remains quite drinkable once you get used to it and the idea to inject the sleepy Belgian blonde style with an overdose of bittering hops is attractive enough conceptually speaking, but Bryggja should and could have executed this idea in a less confronting way than they did here. And what's that weird lavender and ethereal spice perfume all about? Isn't it about time that the Belgian legislator callously obliges brewers to explicitly mention the spices they use? Not amused really, a bizarre concoction, in which this overt spiciness clashes with the bitter hoppiness; have an extra point for boldness - and for dividing opinions, as is clearly demonstrated in previous ratings on this site, but that still doesn't make up for the fact that the flavours here keep violently clashing until the last drop.

33cl bottle from De Bierboom, Brugge. Poured into a Chimay chalice at home on 18th May 2018. Light golden body, white crown. Citrus smelling hops rule the nose, mild yeasty esters too. The citrus hops also dominate the taste, giving a lemon sourness and bitterness to the flavour. Not my thing, but pleasant enough if you are into citrusy beers.