This year’s autumn beer in Ben’s series, sold only at Delhaize supermarkets. Apparently Ben Vinken is trying to go through most of the classic Belgian ale styles, in this case a witbier. Champagne bottle opens with a loud bang, but no gushing. Very thickly and persistently cobweb lacing, ’paperish’, coarse, egg-white head over a straw yellow blonde beer, misty from the start and indeed looking exactly the same as Hoegaarden and all its epigones. Aroma is quite agreeable yet stereotypical: very strong, almost artificial bubblegum sweetness paired with more crisp Granny Smith apples, banana, lavender soap, freshly cut nettles, canned apricot, coriander seed but not as obtrusive as I had feared, hints of mandarin, earth, white bread, clear wheat and fresh grass. Spritzy onset, feeling almost like sparkling mineral water and therefore rather overcarbonated, with a crisp fruitiness of pear, pineapple, ripe gooseberry and the unavoidable, strong, sweet banana. Middle phase seems to continue this banana and bubblegum flavour, with a lean, supple, somewhat oily, only lightly bready maltiness to it along with ’soapy’ wheat as if you’re pouring down some industrially made white bread in liquid form. Finish reveals the eternal coriander of course, rendering a resiny, bittersweet touch as it always does, but it cannot even compete with the bubblegum sweetishness persisting all the way through. Some dried citrus peel fraîcheur appears in the end; hop bitterness is nowhere to be seen, apart from a very vague and purely structural, deeply and very faintly bittering presence as is custom in this style. Coriander lingers as expected, also retronasally and even quite strongly so, but it remains the bubblegum (and banana candy) taste which bothers me the most and overpowers even the wheat character to some extent; this goes for the overcarbonation as well, and I also get a vague hint of subtle plastic-like flavours. I do not like either witbier or the character Ben Vinken too much and tried to stay as objective about this as possible, but I remain unimpressed, certainly if compared to some of the six previous beers he has commissioned at Anders; this is basically another Hoegaarden clone, as there are already too many on the Belgian market especially considering the fact this style is already past its climax commercially, but apparently the ’Belgian bubblegum’ quality has received a certain dominance over the expected and ubiquitous coriander soup effect. What frustrates me the most about this beer style, is that great ’deviations’ have been made (I think of Wallonian ’tarwedubbels’ like Saisis and Honelles), but when it comes to commercial considerations, it is still, in all, the old Hoegaarden standard which reigns, with even a bit less spiciness than usual in this particular case. I expect more from the next Ben’s: a "wood aged" version of last year’s Strong Dark...

Sampled at 8th Danish Ratebeer Gathering, Ulfborg 2015. Clear golden color, virtually no head. Smell and taste lightly malts, a hint of corn, lightly bitter, lightly straw. Average body and carbonation.

750 ml. bottle. Text in the bookles promisses lots of coriander. Okay… Hazy lemon golden, small white head. Nose is esters, soap, sweet artificial banana, big white sugar,…. Hugely carbonation, bafflingly so, higher than a regular soft drink. Taste is overly bubbly, heavy white sugar, artificial tasting, artificial sweeteners, big banana & lots of coriander, big fluffy, effervescent, good amount of fish guts giving it an almost vague Hefe-like feel, vaguely mineral wheat. Totally empty & stereotypical but that was to be expected. It is just heavily carbonated & bland. A light touch watery maybe, wheat sourness is very low. Nothing offensive here just very bland.

Hefig herber, eher trockener Antrunk. Konstante Aromen, weniger komplex als das American Oak. Rund, hell malzig, kaum holzig. Spritzig, fruchtig herb, eher kurzer Abgang. 11/11/10/9/12/9

Milder, hefig zitronig säuerlicher Beginn. Die Säure ebbt dabei schnell ab, fruchtig, etwas erhöhte Karbonisierung. Hefig, Aprikose, spritzig, hell holzig. Das holzige Aroma verstärkt sich zum Ende deutlich, mild herb. Gut! 10/12/12/11/12/11