Bottle at Het Mouterijtje Kortrijk. Clear deep gold colour lasting white head .Apparently the last of these beers. Weird glass. Orange aroma. Smells of Lucazade. Tastes of Lucazade. Wild. Stupid silly sweet but also fun. And drinkable

Fles thuis geprobeerd met LiekevdV. Het is een troebel bleekgeel bier met een medium witte schuimkraag. Het heeft een aroma van hop en citrus. De smaak is fris zuur en citrus achtig.

Fles 33cl thuis. IBU32. Fris zuur, grapefruit, citrus, citroentonen, passievrucht, fruitzoeten, suikers, redelijk droog, licht wrang, bitters, hoppig. (12-8-2023).

Tripel (or actually 'strong saison' if the yeast character is followed) flavoured with the saltiness of both seaweed (unfortunately the species remains undisclosed) and samphire, the latter of which is new to me at least in beer... Thick and frothy, irregularly but tightly plaster-lacing, egg-white, pillowy and firm head, lightly misty apricot blonde robe with pale orangey glow and visible sparkling, turning hazy with sediment (with minute dots of proteins floating around). Aroma of unripe pear, indeed fresh samphire, far less (green?) seaweed but still a hint of wakame, courgette, raw leek, salted white bread dough, raw potato, uncooked tagliatelle, vaguer hints of dried orange peel, plaster, grass, unripe peanuts, raw turnip, stale sweat (warming up), gypsum. Crisp onset, restrained fruity notes of unripe pear, courgette and cucumber, minerally carbonation without being too stingy (in relation to style), smooth and slick body; cereally, raw potato-like core with subtly salty edges from the samphire and seaweed but not going all Gose-like (contrary to what I was hoping for). White bread dough and starch-like raw root vegetable continue, meeting with a grassy hop touch providing mild end bitterness; a chalky note lingers along a more dim, earthy cooked potato element, while the hop bitterness travels along. Some vague 'jenever'-like alcohol waits at the end, but does not interfere with the rest of the flavours; an impression of white soap comes in at the end too. The hop bitterness goes on after swallowing but never becomes too harsh. I may have no idea what samphire is supposed to taste like in beer but I did have a few seaweed beers before and this one clearly hesitates to go all the way, with only light salty, chalky and soapy notes to remind one that these 'marine' elements are there; I guess autosuggestion can do a lot when drinking this one chilled on a summer afternoon at the seaside, but during a hot summer night inland, it does not make a lasting impression. Another attempt of Kanaal One to be different without having the background knowledge of craft brewing - note that its very pioneer, Anchor, was announced to cease its activities earlier this week - and thus ending up with something weird and rather unbalanced, counting on the educated beer drinker's benevolence. I had all four Gigant beers on the market right now and I regret to say that none of them convinced me of their 'raison d'être' - all of them are oddly constructed, and certainly not to my personal appreciation of what I think makes a truly good beer, sorry.

Blonde apparently aged on wood chips and flavoured with bitter oranges, in an attempt to evoke something abstractly picon-like for the summer days. Moussy, off-white, membrane-lacing, stable head, misty peachy-orange blonde robe. Aroma of very strong fresh oranges (bitter or not) and orange peel, orange zest even, mandarin, orange bread, ginger powder, peach, dry earth, hints of dry leather, clove and puddle water. Sweet but quite crisp onset, peach and some guava but primarily a whole lot of orange, medium carbonated with minerally effects, moving into a bread-crusty, bit cracker-like maltiness, dry in itself, but strongly sweetened by a truckload of that orange ingredient, even a bit 'milky' in a way; spicy phenolics (clove) join in but woodiness as such remains all but absent. Some lingering earthy hop bitterness at the back as well as an odd chalky note and, again, lots of lingering orange. One of the most orange-dominated beers I ever had at least in a Belgian ale context, orange-juicy almost, with a weird contrast between dryness and sweetness; I do not, however, get a true 'picon feel' from it and as usual with Gigant, it contains some odd and unbalanced flavours which still fail to convince me of this brand. Weird, but altogether interesting, like most of their output...

‘Blonde kveik IPA’ with four hop varieties by upcoming West-Flemish brewery Kanaal One; thanks Craftmember for sharing. Fluffy, egg-white, irregular but closed, frothy head, slowly opening over a pale orange-tinged golden blonde robe with translucent yeast suspension, hazy with sediment. Bizarre and ever-shifting aroma of farmland, even manure (but luckily volatile), pickled beetroot, orange, guava, jasmin flowers, cigarette ashes, elderblossom, jute bags, freshly cut grass, cheese rind, coriander powder, honeysuckle, cotton cloth, hay. Sweetish onset, ripe orange and apricot with hints of guava and pear, medium carbonated with sourish undertone (even very vaguely gooseberry-like); smooth body, bready malts under ongoing fruitiness where the kveik esters and the hop aromas become hard to distinguish, a complex of mango, vague orange, green pear and unripe pineapple with some of these aspects no doubt coming from the kveik and other from the hops, the latter also providing a long, bit wormwoody bitterness. Very odd beer, shifting colours all the time, likely due to the kveik being a very expressive one (not all kveik strands are like that) and hardly under control here, forming a tangle of sultry fruitiness with the hops but also producing far less inviting ‘earthy’ aspects. Unusual, more a hoppy Belgian blonde than true IPA but even in that sense very idiosyncratic. Took me a while to appreciate, but somehow interesting and original so one of those ‘benefit of the doubt’ cases for me.

Two bottles while watching the European Champions League Final in 't Monk, Brugge on 10th June 2023. Really pleasant beer all round, light haze in the orange body, white head. Orange aroma and taste, other flavours and esters also, but mostly orange like.

Bottle. Color: Slightly hazy golden, white head. Aroma: Malty, spicy Saison yeast. Taste: Malty, yeasty, spicy notes. Light hopbitter background. Moderate sweet. Medium body, just below average carbonation. Nice Saison-ish Tripel.

Lci