6.6

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

Bottle shared with Maakun. AMber color, small white head. Note btw: light gusher! Aroma suggests bretty, red wine barrel influence and wood. Flavor confirms. Kinda weird flavor but not unpleasant. Light to medium tart with an underlying base of malt and dried fruits. Odd but not unpleasant.

7.1

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7.5

Bottle shared thanks to Benzai. Slight gusher. Bit hazy dull amber. Some red wine, sweet malt, yogurt, marzipan, bitter dry oak, grassy, yeast, quite some spices. Medium sweet and bitter. Full bodied.

7.5

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 9 | Overall - 7.5

Bottle shared with Maakun. Gusher alert! Hazy pale yellow color, full sized white head initially but it quickly diminishes. Aroma and flavor are absolutely crap as a session IPA, but if you try this with your eyes closed and somebody tells you it's something like an old Orval or a Belgian Saison, I think most people would buy it. Quite nice and bretty, but nowhere near a session IPA.

6.9

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

Bottle shared thanks to Benzai. Gusher. Hazy yellow golden with fluffy head. Soft funk, Brett, wheat, gin, lime zest, yoghurt, lemon, straw. Light sweet and bitter, very light sour. Unde rmedium bodied with a lot of carbonation.

7.3

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

7.8

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

Panda at home, thanks to Kenneth, 13/07/2025.
Deep chestnut brown with a beige cap that thins to the edge.
Nose is caramel, fruit slice, dates, figs, toasted brown sugars.
Taste comprises liquid fruit cake, brown sugars, toffee, caramel, hint of dark fruits, figs, dates, mellow barrel.
Full bodied, fine carbonation, semi drying close with a balanced rising boost.
Solid well balanced and approachable barley wine.

3.4

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 4 | Flavor - 1.5 | Texture - 5 | Overall - 2

Aus der Flasche im 2025-06 getrunken. Das ist das 2 Grain Master was zwar deutliche Getreide-Arome aufweist, aber Speck und Rauch Noten ist das gar nicht mein Stil. Es wirkt auch irgendwie unstimmig was ich im Glas nicht brauche. Ab in den Ausguss!

3.8

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 2 | Texture - 5 | Overall - 2

Aus der Flasche im 2025-03 getrunken. Hier ist klar der Stil eines Barley Wines ,it deutlicher Süße erkennbar. Ich der Nase ist wird auch eine Apfelnote erkennbar, aber vordergründig sind Aromen Speck, Torf bzw. Räucher auffällig. Und genau das brauche ich nicht und will es nicht hier im Bier haben. Auch wenn der hohe Alkoholhalt recht gut eingebunden ist, will ich dieses Bier wegen dem Räucher-Note nicht bis zu Ende trinken. Schade!

7.5

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

De Meester is beginning to dabble into IPA territory and this new one is apparently intended as a West Coast IPA - but then the brewer adds the word "Hazy" to the beer's name, uses Idaho 7 hops which were only invented in 2015, and advertises it as having "notes of tropical fruit". I need no further information to know that this overrated brewery has no clue as to what actual West Coast IPA was, but let us give this a chance for science. Can bought at De Picker in Zele. Frothy, egg-white, intricately 'Brugse kant'-like lacing, medium thick, firm yet gradually receding head over a hazy apricot blonde robe with peachy tinge, turning all cloudy or even 'milky' with sediment - the looks of any serious NEIPA, but not at all of a WCIPA. Aroma of pomelo, guava, blood orange zest, green mango, yellow kiwi (the Nelson Sauvin no doubt), pink pepper, tangerine, meringue, Graham crackers, touch of dried dill, diesel, cooked bell pepper, papaya, background notes of spoiled oatmeal porridge, mud and olive oil. Juicy onset with impressions of guava, tangerine, Zespri kiwi and halfripe mango, quite lively carbonated with some minerally 'stings' adding crispness; supple, medium full body. Cereally, porridge-like malt core drenched in citric and tropically-fruity hops, bursting with honey pomelo (flesh and zest), papaya, green mango and granadilla, as an underlying bitter aspect develops - yet remaining zesty and 'friendly', even if stretching out over the finish for quite a while. Ends a bit powdery but without hop burn, zesty and quite bright with a peppery twist - but remains firmly in the NEIPA territory, which is what bothers me the most here: West Coast IPA was the kind of IPA that was not only dominant when I began to venture into beer tasting, it was the only kind in existence, if its own double variant (think Pliny the Elder), the non-related original English IPA and the red and white variants are ignored (black IPA was still largely unknown in those days even though technically it already existed). Since several years, following a worldwide dominance of hazy NEIPAs, they have re-emerged, but in a world already ruined by hazy IPA dominance, what you get is NEIPA which inclines a bit more to the bitter side - not unlike Heady Topper or Focal Banger, in fact, the first NEIPAs ever. Obviously we are far removed from Heady Topper or Focal Banger here, and I could complain for many an hour about WCIPA not being what it used to be: I guess present-day craft brewers around the western world were scarcely around when actual WCIPA ruled the IPA world and think that making a NEIPA a bit more bitter makes it qualify as one. In that sense, this is indeed one of those contemporary WCIPAs again, but for me it will never qualify as one. That said, I have to admit that it has crispness, colour and vibrancy more than I was expecting from this brewery and is therefore not a bad IPA (generally speaking) at all; in fact, to Belgian standards, it has a very Anglo-Saxon feel to it and very little "Belgian IPA", if any at all. Bottom line, then: this is by no means a WCIPA for me, but it does qualify as a more than decent, pungent, slick 'true' IPA much more so than I was expecting. Perhaps this brewery's true strength does lie in the vast field of IPA after all? Let us see - but in the meantime, I cannot stress enough that this one is not a West Coast IPA regardless of which way you look at it.

7.5

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

The regular quadrupel in De Meester's range, strange that I have not rated this one before (but I am not De Meester's biggest fan so I probably subconsciously skipped it so far or something...). Thick and frothy, pale yellowish beige, irregularly membrane-lacing, even-bubbled and stable head on a very dark mahogany brown robe with burgundy edges. Aroma of dry caramel, old liquorice candy, clove, Brazil nuts, muesli, unsugared gum, dried plums, jenever, hints of dry autumn leaves, cheap brandy, Antwerpian 'Wycam's Borstbollen', eucalyptus, nutmeg and, frankly, 'hospital'. Sweet, fruity onset, dried plum, fig, some baked banana and some old raisin, lively carbonated but not harshly stinging and perfectly fine for the intended style, with smooth, bit glueish mouthfeel, albeit in a somewhat thinner way than expected. Brown-bready, dry-caramelly malt core with side notes of Ersatz chocolate, toffee and hazelnut bread - but less complex than I make it seem using all these different descriptors; a light toasty-bitter accent does appear at the back, but it remains really subtle, with more bitterness coming from a leafy hop dosage enhanced by brandy-like, warming alcohol. Odd and distinct aromatic notes of liquorice, nutmeg, clove and even vague eucalyptus linger - all phenolic, no doubt, but more colourfully so than I was expecting, though after letting the beer warm more, they become quite 'clinical' and far less inviting. Though following the basic structure of a quad, this particular interpretation does have its own personality: more slender and lean than is typical for the style, with a more outspoken herbal-aromatic spiciness and a tad more toastiness in the malt department; these features combined even remind me more of Scotch than quadrupel, but who knows where the brewer found his inspiration. Not too shabby, in any case, a bit different and technically well executed apart from the overt phenolic activity and this 'gummy' flavour which did not let go and was not entirely my cup of tea. Interesting one, in all, but when in the mood for a quad, I would still order a Sint-Bernardus Abt, Rochefort 8 or even a La Trappe Quadrupel over this.