33cl bottle from Albert Heijn supermarket in Maasmechelen. F: medium, white, average retention. C: gold, hazy. A: malty, citrus, floral, grapefruits, bit tropical fruits. T: medium malty base, grapefruits, bit pines, herbal, decent bitterness, medium carbonation, citrus, nice hoppy for the style, enjoyed.

The tripel from this new Limburg microbrewery, bought online. Opens with a mean 'hiss' but no gushing. Thick and foamy, yellowish egg-white, regular, even-bubbled, very stable head, initially crystal clear pale orange blonde robe with 'old golden' hue and strings of lively sparkling; turns only lightly misty with sediment. Aroma of overripe potatoes, damp kitchen towel, leftover dough, overcooked broccoli (strong DMS indeed), seeds of paradise indeed (coriander-like in this case), peach, turnip, hints of soggy peanuts, bread crust soaked in milk, nutmeg, old orange peel, dried apple peel, damp straw, dry clay, moist white pepper but very little of the promised Szechuan pepper, cooked carrot, minerals and some old 'graanjenever'. Fruity onset, sweetish with impressions of peach, red apple and slight banana, some residual sugars continuing but luckily losing its overt sweetness quickly, over a moderately carbonated, slick, smooth bread-crusty, very faintly caramelly and cereally malt sweet core, adorned with very pronounced clove- and even nutmeg-like phenols but also marred by strong retronasal DMS (overcooked kale, cooked beans and overripe potatoes) which ruins the entire beer for me. Some floral hop bitter notes in the finish but not nearly enough to bring much-needed balance and character; in fact those spicy phenolic effects, flirting with band aid, remain strong, and 'jenever'-like alcohol, though admittedly not setting in too soon, distract from what should be happening in the final stages. Some spicy pepperiness, paired with a certain orange zest element typical for Szechuan pepper (which botanically is not pepper at all), does linger and does that right, but it unfortunately remains too subtle. So subtle in fact that this is, all things considered, still a boring old Belgian tripel, a 'genre' of which way too many representatives are circling around on the market these days. Many young self-proclaimed 'craft' brewers work with unusual or untraditional ingredients and this one has a shot at that as well, but they all too often forget that first and foremost, you need to come up with a sufficiently solid base recipe before beginning to even think of tinkering with it. This is, alas, one of those cases: a rather feeble and off-flavour-ridden tripel given the 'specialty' treatment is never a good thing. Learn to create a firm, decent tripel first guys, and then throw in whatever you want, for all I care - but perhaps more importantly, please stop referring to yourselves as the "most adventurous brewery" in Belgium if you do not know what you are talking about.

Fles 33cl thuis. Yeasty, hoppig, hop (mosaic, mandarina bavaria), fruitig, mandarijn, sinaasappel, licht fizzy, bittertonen, citrus. (10-3-2023).

Fles 33cl thuis. Fruitig, honingtonen, kruidig, wat muffig, pepertje niet echt merkbaar, biscuit, Belgisch gist, steenfruit, maltig, licht klef. (3-3-2023).

33cl bottle. A clear orange golden beer with a big off-white head. Aroma of mid sweet pale malt, some honey and spices. Taste of strong biscuit malt, burned honey, grains and yeast.