7.5

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7

29/I/24 - 37.5cl bottle @ home, BBE: 2026, N°23, batch: 0 (2024-69) Thanks to Erwin for sharing the bottle!

Clear orange beer, lots of chunks in the glass under a small creamy irregular white head, unstable, non adhesive. Aroma: nice, funky, lots of brett, dry, spicy, wood notes. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: nice acidity, pretty bitter, fruity, lots of tangerines, orange peel, wood, tannins. Aftertaste: bitter, woody, dry, some tannins, orange peel, funky, a bit spicy, ok but not great.

7.2

Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8

Bottle from Brew Cavern, Nottingham. Aroma had a vinous streak with citrus and low key malts. Opaque amber. Thick fluffy white head - full-on chunky lacing. Very bitter with a equally sour streak - both vinous and resinous. Develops a juicy fruitiness. Herbal and sherbert edge. Although the bitterness is a constant. Light. Thin. Fizzy carbonation. Long dry astringent finish. Crispness.

7.6

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8

Pours unclear, no real head. Scent is very funky, girardin easy recongizable . Funky, oak. Mild skunk, canabis comes to mind. Taste is full, oaky, malty Geuze. Dry, mild bitterness. Girardin takes the lead, Oud beersel also blindly recognizable. Boon and De Ranke more hidden in the blend. Nice enough, but as to be expected, doesn't match the price-quality level of the actual geuze's that went in here.

7

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7

12 February 2022. At Winter Belgian Beer Geek Gathering. Many thanks for hosting, Tim, and cheers to the whole crew!

Clear yellow, stable, frothy, white head. Aroma of tart pomelo, grapefruit, unripe peach, white grape, lemon. Taste has sweet-sour apple, pineapple, pomelo, bit bitter. Tart, yellow-fruity finish, grassy hops and hay, more citrus. Medium body, slick texture, average carbonation. Not bad but feels weird, thrown together (which it probably is).

7.4

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

Pours slightly hazed yellowblonde. Small white head. Scent is funky, lambic shines trough. Wheat is mild, but noticable. Taste is tart, some lambic funk. Brett is very prominent. Some oak, milder wheat.

4.4

Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 4 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 4.5

12/II/22 - 37.5cl bottle @ BBGG Winter 22, BBE: 2024, batch 0 (2022-168) Thanks to Erwin for sharing the bottle!

Clear blond to pale yellow beer, small creamy white head, unstable, falls down quickly, a bit adhesive. Aroma: very funky, weird, dry, spicy, lots of brett, dry and herbal, funky brett notes. MF: very lively carbon, medium body. Taste: bitter start, herbal, rather unpleasant, dry, earthy. Aftertaste: herbal, bitter touch, some brett, spicy, bit oxidized, dry finish.

6.8

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 6.5 | Flavor - 6.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7

37.5cl bottle @ Brewver Winter Gathering '22, thanks Erwin. BB end 2024, batch '0'.
Dorée, léger pâle, col fin blanc.
Arôme sur un bouquet 'sauvage', assez frais, petite note de grains concassés. Bouquet 'wit' reste assez modéré apportant plus le grains - froment.

Palais est sur un léger funk avec un bon effet du blend - pommes vertes, côté 'wit', pas mauvaise avec un caractère aigrelet qui n'est pas trop dominant

7.5

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7

The owners of In 't Nieuw Museum, a restaurant in Bruges, took the old tradition of blending brews to create a new, 'conglomerate' beer, as in e.g. blending geuze from different batches (and brands) of lambic, to a new, postmodern level, in full 'craft beer movement' spirit: instead of limiting themselves to lambics like many others do nowadays, they created a business model in which existing beers of whichever kind are bought in and blended to whole new flavour combinations, each time in limited editions of a few hundred bottles. This particular one - I am having bottle number 136 - is one of their more recent blends (I missed out on the first because I simply had not noticed yet that this project exists) and is said to consist of Blonde Kuif (a blonde from Ostend's Koelschip - hence the nickname 'Zeesaison' for this blend), Fort Lapin Wit (a witbier from Bruges), the famous XX Bitter from De Ranke and a sour base beer they call 'Zure Pater'. That last one in particular bothers me a bit: though they admit that they do not brew themselves, it remains undisclosed where this Zure Pater then comes from; my best guess is that it is a home made blend of lambics they bought from one of the Senne valley lambic brewers, but why not disclose this on your label as well, if you are happy to admit that you did not brew it yourself? Trade secret, I suppose, but still... Anyway, comes from a 37.5 cl bottle with cork and muselet, opening easily without gushing. Egg-white, quite thick and stable, thickly paper-lacing, moussy, dense head on a hazy apricot blonde beer with ochre tinge. Fruity aroma with obvious lambic characteristics, impressions of wild apple, gooseberry, unripe peach, dry hay, sourdough, white bread crumbs, green banana, wood sorrel, dusty old attic, old books, dried field flowers, clear 'Bretty' horseblanket and stale sweat, dry cider, moist white pepper. Tart onset in a fruity, crisp way, lively carbonation accentuating the sourness which nevertheless remains quite gentle; lots of green apple, green banana, some cucumber, gooseberry, hint of lemon - feeling very lambic-like but indeed with a softening Belgian ale component to it; supple bready maltiness with a wheaty edge (ever so slightly soapy - and in itself also accentuating the sourness again), medium full, sweetish but restrainedly so and dried by this ongoing lactic sourness. Spicy and floral notes appear in the finish, a pinch of coriander seed, and - when the sourness meets the hop bitterness, no doubt mostly coming from the XX Bitter part - something vaguely grapefruity, evolving into a long, herbally bitter finish, where that crisp, 'greenish' sourness still plays along as well. Dusty and sweaty Brettanomyces aspects are meanwhile unmistakable. "Brett eats everything" as they say, and indeed this concoction feels like a Belgian blonde mixed with lambic, in which the lambic yeasts have quickly taken over and now predominate, with all their lactic and fruity acids and funky Brett effects - in fact it is hard to pull out any of the other beers' features, apart from that earthy XX Bitter hop bitterness and the coriander from the witbier. I had my doubts about the usefulness and quality of this project before I opened the bottle, but I must admit that the end result is quite satisfying, with layers of complexity and a lovely 'Belgian earthiness' to it. Very likeable, in spite of, or perhaps thanks to, tasting like a lambic more than anything else - but certainly motivating to find out more about this altogether interesting Bierstekers project.

7

Troebel blond. Wit schuumpje. Zure blonde. Granig, grapefruitsap, blanke amandel, wit druifje, brettig gestoord. Gushte ook weer lekker over tafel en vloerkleed, godvrrrredomme. Maar een prima smakelijk bier.

7

Funky woolly hairy bretty horseblanketjuice while watching 📺Two Horses of Genghis Kahn (2009). Sour hay, sweet blonde underneath. This is the best pater so far. Medium body, soft carb. Condolences to the Deconinck family.