18/VI/21 - on tap @ Brouwbar (Gent), BB: n/a (2021-503)

Clear orange beer, big creamy yellowish head, pretty stable, bit adhesive. Aroma: bit fruity, malty, grains, some caramel, tropical fruits. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: malty start, good bitterness, some citrus, quite some banana, caramel touch. Aftertaste: tropical fruits, more banana, malty, grains, gentle bitterness, some tropical fruits, grassy notes.

30 May 2021. At Brouwbar; cheers to Anke & Ama Deke! Clear amber, lasting, foamy, off-white head. Aroma of mango, pink grapefruit, pomegrenate, pine, spruce, biscuit, pink pepper, peanuts, gin, vague burnt BBQ herbs. Taste has sweetish mango, pomegrenate & melon over a biscuity & peanutty malty base, quite bitter grapefruit kicking in along spruce, herbs & spicy yeast. Peppery & piney hoppy finish, lingering accents of red fruit, grapefruit peel, herbs and expected spicy gin-like alcohol. Medium body, oily texture, soft carbonation. Powerful and complex DIPA, a feat - again - by Brouwbar!

30 May 2021. At Brouwbar; cheers to Anke & Ama Deke! Clear dark golden, small, foamy, white head. Aroma of ripe peach, plum, yellow raisin, clove, white pepper, green banana, brioche. Taste has sweet banana peel, plum & pear over a honeyish & doughy malty base, bit yeasty with spicy bitter accents, very slightly wheaty sour. Floral hoppy finish, lingering ripe (yellow) fruits, yeast, spices and warming gin-like alcohol. Medium body, oily texture, average carbonation. Saison 'on steroids' as it were, enjoyable sipper.

30 May 2021. At Brouwbar; cheers to Anke & Ama Deke! Clear dark golden, stable, foamy, white head. Aroma of dill, rosemary, thyme perhaps, 'bouquet garni' in a way, lemon zest, kiwi, lime, unripe orange. Taste has sweetish apple, pear and vague peach, sour kiwi next to lemon & lime, pairing well with a sourdough-like maltiness, bit clove-like spicy. Grassy hoppy & zesty finish, more spices, wheat and sour fruit. Medium body, slick texture, average carbonation. Rounded beer yet remaining subtle, decent.

30 May 2021. At Brouwbar; cheers to Anke & Ama Deke! Clear golden, small, foamy, white head. Aroma of ripe banana, canned peach, apricot, plum, yeast, clove, white bread, pear. Taste has sweet banana, peach & apricot over a tangible malty base of white bread & dough, bit wheaty sour, vague spicy accents. Grassy hoppy finish, bit bitter, yet maintaining ripe fruit, dough and warming jenever-like alcohol. Medium body, oily texture, average carbonation. Quite typical, with a Brouwbar touch; likeable.

30 May 2021. At Brouwbar; cheers to Anke & Ama Deke! Clear orange, stable, frothy, white head. Aroma of mandarin peel, unripe peach, lime, grapefruit juice, biscuit, vague kiwi. Taste has sweetish mandarin & peach, sour kiwi & citrus zest with tangible biscuity maltiness. Floral hoppy finish, crisp & zesty with subtle stonefruit bitterness. Medium body, slick texture, average carbonation. Textbook APA in a sense; not Brouwbar's best but still above-average in the beerscape of course.

The newest hazy IPA by Brouwbar to date, with eggshell-white, irregularly edged, creamy, slowly breaking head and completely cloudy yellow-apricot robe. Aroma of guava, freshly cut red apple, minerals, some moist white pepper, green banana, deep-fried parsley, grass, raw cucumber, white bread crumbs. Clean, sweetish onset, very smooth and restrained unripe banana, green melon and pepino fruitiness, lots of underlying minerality (more so than I recall from earlier Brouwbar NEIPAs) acting actually very crisp and refreshing; supple, slightly creamy body, white bread dough-like, coloured by grassy and grapefruity hoppiness – with just a pinch of tropical fruitiness to it, but mostly feeling ‘green’ and refreshingly herbal, also offering a late, peppery bitterness which exceeds the bitterness level of most NEIPAs today. Cleaner (in taste, not looks), more crisp, more minerally and more bitter than the average NEIPA – but very quenching and clearly distinct from its predecessors. Refreshing is the right word here.

New Brouwbar pale ale, launched last week and enjoyed at their pub from tap. Medium thick, small-bubbled, membrane-like lacing, of-white head, hazy deep amberish peach blonde robe (darker than average for an APA but looking a lot like the old EPA). Aroma of bread crust, lightly toasted peanuts, hint of fresh wormwood leaf, minerals, dry teabags, rainwater, old dried grapefruit peel. Very clean onset – almost neutral, in fact, though a faint hint of dried fruitiness is there; very fizzy carbonation and very minerally undertone, like NI62 (I actually asked the brewer if he had tinkered with his brewing water – which is not the case). This minerality feels so strong here that it almost becomes metallic, albeit in a completely ‘natural’ and by no means off-putting way; supple, slender peanutty and dry bread-crusty, rusk-tinged maltiness, with that toasty bitterish edge supported by tea-ish, long-lasting, very herbal hoppiness (a bag of old herbes de Provençe), but still this hoppiness manages to restrain itself in bitterness at least for an APA. And now that I am coming to conclusions anyway: this beer, much more than earlier APAs from Brouwbar, feels not like an APA, but like an old school EPA or English pale ale, a style that has become completely obsolete these days, a style no young craft beer hipster ever thinks about (let alone asks for), but a style previous generations used to drink by the gallon in Belgium – and a style which has also thoroughly inspired, or even spawned, the old Belgian amber ale or ‘spéciale belge’, another classic beer style nobody ever talks about anymore. Note to self: ask Benjamin next time if that was the intention…