Bottle pour at the RateBeer Best 2017 Grand Tasting/Bottle Share. Clear yellow with off-white head. Aromas of herbs, spice, malt, citrus. Tastes of herbs, spice, banana, malt. Light body with a dry finish.

Bottle at RBGT. Pours cloudy yellow. Aroma is candy, grass, sweets. Body is heavy and sweet, still grassy and sweets, feels green. Medium sweet palate. Refreshing in a way.

The first of apparently four beers developed by Erwin Vanmol, a Jack-of-all-trades probably best known as a cartoonist, brewed originally at De Leite, but now apparently at Eutropius; this rating concerns the Leite version. Slow gusher but manageable. Frothy, egg-white, initially quite dense head with good retention, leaving thick patches of ’Belgian’ cobweb-lacing around the glass, slowly showing some gaps in the middle; hazy ’old gold’ colour with warmer peachy hue, becoming an equally misty, warmer orangey gold with sediment. Aroma suffers from quite a lot of DMS (overcooked Brussels sprouts) or even DMTS (melting rubber), but apart from that shows more flattering impressions of apricot, apple peel, ripe pear, gooseberry, freshly ironed cloth, raw potato, cooked parsnip, old dried field flowers, hay, dry earth, powder sugar, baked banana, freshly cut grass, moist white pepper, stale lime juice somewhere, soggy white bread, chicory, dusty old curcuma powder. Fruity onset, hints of pear peel, pineapple and some light banana, sweetish with an almost equally strong gooseberry sourishness, crisp carbonation but typical for a Belgian blonde, traces of residual white candi sugar-ish sweetness but nothing cloying; supple middle with the sharpish carbonation numbing a little bit, bready in its core with sharper, ’greener’ grainy edges (apparently other grains were applied - the smoothness of oats remains very limited, though, at least compared with other oat-containing beers I had); this flavor, along with the fruity esters, leads to a floral, lightly peppery, earthy and very (too) subtly citrusy hop bitterish tail, more hop bitter than average for the style and a tad resinous, but earthy yeastiness and soft malt sweetishness come through in equal proportions. Earthy, artisanal Belgian blonde, unfortunately suffering from sulfuric off-flavours but as these gradually fade away, it becomes somewhat more elegant and quaffable. Decent but fairly run of the mill and certainly nothing to get excited about, not really motivating me to go out and seek his three other beers. Granted, I get that there are very, very subtle international (hop) influences at work here, but they are way too subtle to my liking - advertizing this as ’citrusy’ is obviously stretching things a bit - and DMS is something I passionately hate in any beer so sorry, but I cannot honestly recommend this.

Imported from my RateBeer account as Vrijstaat Vanmol Gronckel (by Vrijstaat Vanmol Brewing):
Aroma: 6/10, Appearance: 4/5, Taste: 6/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 12/20, MyTotalScore: 3.1/5

7/I/17 - 33cl bottle from Bierhalle Deconinck (Vichte) @ home - BB: see cap. Nothing on the cap, though... (2017-24)

Clear dark blond beer, big solid creamy white head, pretty stable, adhesive, leaving a nice lacing in the glass. Aroma: very malty, grains, cow fodder, bit sweet, cookie dough, some marzipan. MF: ok carbon, medium to full body. Taste: grains, malty touch, soft bitterness, cow fodder, hay, little sweet, soft bitterness. Aftertaste: dough, some almonds, bit hoppy, bitter, grains, yeast.

Pours rather clear blonde, good white head. Smell is fruity, some malts, bit sweet ( trough the aroma which I supose are from the hops ) . Taste is very remotely bitter, mild yeastyness. Fruity sidenote, not really hoppy, perhaps it’s more of a combo-thing between the hops, malts and yeasts used. Agreeable body and carbo. Not bad at all. easy drinker. Good first beer ! can’t wait for the oud bruin to be released to see how a more out-of-the-ordinary beer by Erwin will taste like !

Huge, towering, dense, light-yellowish head, slowly dissipating with lace over faintly veiled golden beer. Very creamy nose, going over in spicy malts. Not much else, but the clinging head is very hopbitter. Typical "beery" flavour - malt, indifferent hops and stale cigarette smoke. Bitter/ish with pale malts underneath, but there is a fleeting sourish streak too. Oats make it a bit creamy, good carbonation. Medium bodied at best. Yeah, it contains oats. For the rest, nothing to signal.

Bottle shared at Grote Dorst. Cloudy milky pale yellow brown with a white head. Aroma of herbs, citrus, yeast and loads of peach. Flavour is light sweet and moderate bitter. Light medium bodied with light carbonation. [18-09-2016]

Hell hefiger, moderat trockener Antrunk. Vollmundig, angenehmer Hopfen. Hell getreidig, weich, rund. Süffig, langer hopfiger Nachhall. 10/8/11/9/7/9