6.5/10
—
Appearance 6
Aroma 7
Flavor 7
Texture 6
Overall 6
Beer made by 4Pajot (which should be renamed 1Pajot now that only one of the four associates is left) for the De Cam pub in Gooik, which strangely seems to have more 4Pajot beers than lambics from the De Cam geuze blendery next door... Anyway, this tripel, atypically from a 50 cl bottle, makes use of chicory root, obtained from entire chicory plants so that all the minerals and flavours are still intact (dixit the brewer, whom we coincidentally met at De Cam when drinking this beer). Thick and foamy, creamy, cobweb-lacing, egg-white head, surprisingly stable for a beer containing a vegetable; lightly hazy, warm pale orangey-tinged 'old gold' robe, more deeply peachy and misty with sediment. Aroma of sweet banana, ripe pear, raw pineapple, white bread, honey, raw and freshly cut 'witloof', sweet stewed turnip, 'jenever' and a background dash of DMS (cooked cabbage - or indeed witloof perhaps). Sweet, bit bubblegummy banana ester in the onset, green pear and pineapple, very sharp and very minerally (over)carbonation, clean cereally pale malt sweetishness, only very lightly bready, lingering honeyish sweetness and fruity notes until an altogether softish end bitterness appears, a tad earthy but only very lightly so, with a leafy and floral hop bitterness superimposed on a 'deeper', yet in all relatively subtle 'witloof' bitterness; the vegetable effect is however enhanced with the retronasal return of that DMS accent. Ends with pronounced, very young 'jenever'-like alcohol, in warmth and even in flavour. Badly hidden alcohol is never a good sign in this type of beers for me, but admittedly the chicory root does add an unusual back flavour and -bitterness here, turning out to be a lot less 'dirty' and earthy than expected.
Tried
from Bottle
on 02 Nov 2018
at 19:12