15 December 2019. At Brouwbar, Ghent. Shared with Anke! Pours clear golden with an unstable, frothy, off-white head. Aroma of fresh mandarin, kiwi, yellow grapefruit, peach, papaya, faint spring onion. Taste has sweet peach, papaya, pairing well with sourish lime & kiwi, bready-biscuity malts leading the way to bitter grapefruit peel & pine; floral & earthy hops in the finish, more kiwi, yellow (tropical) fruit & even a hint of spices. Medium body, oily texture, fizzy carbonation. Packed with taste, this one, and indeed evoking some kind of New Zealand treatment.

15 December 2019. At Brouwbar, Ghent. Shared with Anke! Pours hazy dark golden with a lasting, small, foamy, off-white head. Aroma of gooseberry, unripe mandarin, lemon peel, straw, yeast, pear, funk, I might add a faint 'Orval'-like touch to that. Taste has sourish gooseberry, lemon & unripe mandarin, sweetish fruity undercurrent with basic grapefruity, piney bitterness. Dryish, piney hoppy finish, lingering sourish fruit, yeast & bread returning retronasally. Medium body, oily texture, fizzy carbonation. Brouwbar creates a lot of accessible Ales but does a fine job at delivering them with an unexpected feat.

15 December 2019. At Brouwbar, Ghent. Shared with Anke! Pours hazy amber with a lasting, small, foamy, tan head; some lacing. Aroma of banana, yellow apple, apricot, honey, breadcrust, peach, faint aceton (weirdly). Taste has sweetish banana, ripe yellow apple & some peach, estery all in all with spicy pepper & clove added to that, mild phenolic effect in yeasty-bready character. Dry, grassy & earthy hoppy finish, spicy, ripe fruit, softly warming gin-like alcohol. Medium body, slick texture, lively carbonation. Solid 'pumped-up' Farmhouse.

1 March 2020. At Brouwbar, Ghent; shared with Anke. Pours hazy yellow with a stable, small, foamy, white head. Aroma of yoghurt, wheat, gooseberry, straw, unripe yellow & green apple, lemon. Taste has sour gooseberry, lemon & apple pairing with yoghurty malts, funky notes & slightly bitter straw; sweetish bready & fruit accents in the back. Dryish, tart, lactic finish, a bit lemony, still bready too with only a hint of straw giving off bitterness; expected low hoppiness all in all. Medium body, oily texture, soft carbonation. Quenching Sour which could definitely be a stepping stone for a lot of people towards more 'challenging' sour & funky brews. 11 June 2020. Lots of kiwi, green apple, lactic acid. Sour fruit profile, wheaty & a bit funky.

1 March 2020. At Brouwbar, Ghent; shared with Anke. Pours hazy yellow with a lasting, small, frothy, off-white head. Aroma of mango, kiwi, ripe peach, pear, grapefruit juice, vague dank onion. Taste has sweetish pear, mango & clementine, dank touch playing with bitter grapefruit peel & herbs, bready & doughy maltiness as the undercurrent. Dry, earthy hoppy, slightly spicy finish even, lingering ripe & almost dank yellow fruit. Medium body, oily texture, soft carbonation. Hazy IPA with a twist, steering away from whole 'juiciness' you encounter so much these days. Nice one! 11 June 2020. Mostly peach, nectarine, tropical fruit all in all, doughy malts with yellow grapefruit peel for balance.

One of several Brouwbar beers released by the brewpub during the corona pandemic, when the pub was necessarily closed but sold packages of their beers (bottled) to consumers every week; thanks to Steve for fetching this bottle for me! Medium thick, snow white, regularly shaped, uneven-bubbled head quickly showing gaps, initially clear pure yellow-golden robe with pale orangey hue, shifting to a more apricot-tinged 'mistiness' with the sediment added. Aroma of banana bread, sweet red apple peel, honey, white bread dough, melting granulated sugar, Honeydew melon, pear compote, biscuit crust, Conference pear, freshly cut grass. Sweet banana and pineapple esters dominate the onset, while a more refreshing green apple sourishness keeps the sweetness from becoming too heavy; medium carbonated, smooth and very supple body, a slender pale malt sweetishness with cereally core but also a layer of ongoing, eventually honeyish sweetness on top, towards a light-bodied finish where a grassy and floral hop aspect adds only very mild bitterness - so that the banana and honey effects are allowed to linger on, yet never in an annoying manner, remaining slender and streamlined. A light bready yeast note appears in the end, but only after addition of the yeast sediment. Friendly, sleek and rounded, exhibiting Brouwbar's streamlined and accessible house style, clearly kept sweet and accessible for the tourists and other casual drinkers frequenting the place - but at the same time, not showing the slightest technical flaw and managing to remain pleasant and easygoing without becoming boring; in that respect, this is a top level Belgian sweet and easy outdoors café blonde for sure, even if this type of beers are a bit lost on me.

Blonde ale by the Brouwbar turned (accidentally, it seems) into a sour, put on tap one week after their second anniversary party. Egg-white, frothy and stable, firm head crowning a misty yellow-straw golden blonde beer. Aroma of freshly cut cucumber, piccalilli, lime juice, raw rhubarb, unripe green gooseberries, chalk, white bread, freshly cut sorrel leaves, butter, green apple. Crisp onset, fruity and ‘green’, sour in an accessible, not too puckering way, hinting at crushed green gooseberries, green apple peel, cucumber and raw rhubarb, with fizzy – yet not too harshly stinging – carbonation. Slick and smooth, lean, white-bready maltiness with a wheaty edge, soaked in this drying, quite easygoing, slender but edgy lactic tartness, ending with a chalky aspect as well as a light floral hop touch of budding flowers and freshly cut grass, though very faintly so and hardly providing any bitterness at all – as befits a typical sour beer regardless of style. ‘Green’, crisp, very refreshing beer, very Berliner Weisse-like without actually being intended as one; a typical example of a ‘happy accident’ I reckon, as nothing in this beer – if indeed judged as a blonde sour – points at ‘dirty’, unwanted or by any means unpleasant infection. What is more, the typically clean, accessible, streamlined house style of Brouwbar is apparent in this one as well. I think it was a good idea to put this on tap and sell it as a sour ale, though I do wonder how stable it is and how it will evolve further in the coming weeks.

New Brouwbar (hazy) IPA variant, hopped with Idaho #7, a new variety developed by the Jackson Hop Farm in Idaho and released onto the market in 2015. I haven’t seen it explicitly advertised in any beer so far but it seems to be a variety that fits well in hazy IPAs for its fruity, tropical character, so I would recommend visiting Brouwbar and tasting this one next to its predecessor (NI33), which I believe is still available there too. Anyway, this newest twig on Brouwbar’s IPA family tree bears a thick and dense, egg-white, creamy and stable head on a hazy peach blonde robe with ochre-ish tinge. Aroma of apricot jam, marmalade, strawberry, ripe lychees, minerals, watermelon, freshly cut green bell pepper, unripe tomatoes. Fruity onset in a soft and very clean way, green melon and unripe banana aspects, subdued in sweetness with minerally side notes; supple, lean body, white-bready and slightly biscuity malt sweetish core ‘pimped’ with delicately aromatic hoppiness reminiscent again of melon, apricot, lychee and bell peppers, even a vague background whiff of black tea, while remaining only very lightly citric; there is some grassy, bit herbal bitterness in the end, but clearly the Idaho #7 hops have been played with for aromatic effects here and not for bitterness. Very soft, delicate and gracious – fitting perfectly in Brouwbar’s house style of restraint and elegance, making inherently very progressive beers accessible to a wider audience, something this brewpub specializes in, and a difficult exercise in balance they keep performing with brio.