Thanks Bruno V.! Another Ghana!

Bottle shared at Brewver Belgian Winter Gathering. Opaque black color, small off-white head. Smell and taste malts, soft roast, cocoa, decently bitter. Quite alright actually. 8-6,5-6,5-7-7

Bottle at Belgian Beer Geeks Gathering. Very dark brown. Roasted malts, licorice, earthy, soft cocoa, dead leaves. Over light sweet and bitter. Medium bodied. Meh.

1/III/25 - 33cl bottle from Dranken Marlou (Zonhoven), shared @ Belgian Beer Geek Gathering (2025 Winter/Spring edition), BB: 9/IV/26, bottled: 9/IV/24, lot 030.N (2025-189)

Little cloudy brown beer, practically no head, a few unstable bubbles, non adhesive. Aroma: malty, caramel, good roast, not too bad! MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: very malty start, soft acidity, wet grains, hay, pretty bitter, and this weird sourness lingering in the back. Aftertaste: bitter, dry, acidic, meh. Not very good, albeit drinkable.

Bouteille 33cl @ Belgian Winter gathering 01 March 2025 – Tim’s place, thanks Tim.
Une nouvelle brasserie au Ghana fondée par deux belges installés là-bas – avec des bouteilles consignées en Belgique, pq pas ! Après avoir pris connaissance de l’histoire tout cela prend plus de sens – surtout le line avec leur propre importation et une connexion avec InBev.
Brune foncée, col léger pale/blanc-cassé.
Arôme est malté, petite touche grillée/toastée, chocolaté, note belge avec une pointe de léger de chocolat noir.
Palais garde une approche classique de grosse brune plus que de stout, malt pâle, cara, chocolat – ici un ajout intéressant de cacao avec une fine amertume. Amertume finement noble avec un caractère plus sur le terreux.

Another one of these Ghanaian craft beers created by two Belgians, for sale at the Delhaize supermarket in Lokeren (much to my surprise as I did not see this coming). The two others I had so far were bland, industrial products so I may have been a bit too enthusiastic in buying this third one as well, but here we are. Thick and foamy, snow white, plastery lacing, pillowy, stable and even-bubbled head over a crystal clear, deeply 'old golden' robe with visible sparkling and 'metallic' ochre tinge. Uninviting aroma of cooked rice that has been in the fridge for four days, synthetic fiber (polyester), industrial crackers, swarf, dried bitter weeds, ginger only very far away and in old and faded powder form (but even then hard to pinpoint - for such a strong flavouring, I expected it to be a lot more obvious), wet polystyrene, pear peel, green banana, frozen cream, a whiff of grass and badly hidden wodka-like alcohol trailing behind. Sweetish but 'dead' onset, very clean with some vague notes of halfripe banana and green pear, some residual sugars in an industrial way, minerally carbonated with smooth, slick body; simplistic cereally pale maltiness ensues with that cooked rice effect at its sides (rice actually having been used here), carrying that sweetishness onwards without developing much otherwise, into a bitterish finish of grassy and somewhat floral hops - but also this badly hidden cheap wodka-like alcohol again, something that should not at all be so apparent at only 7% ABV (which is, by all standards, at the lower limit of a 'tripel'). Ginger, again, remains limited to a background echo of dull spiciness, but hard to distinguish from either the sweet onset or the bitter ending of this beer - frankly, I am not even convinced I had been able to identify it had I not known it was in here. Indeed, for a 'tropical' beer flavoured with ginger, this feels very bland and industrial (again), and even if I am only a cool lover of ginger, I expected this ingredient to be far more outgoing. Heck, a serious dosage of the stuff could have even helped to make this thing interesting - but apparently they again chose the path of boring macro style beers, made cheaply and pasteurized to death. This could have been an AB InBev concoction for all I know... Only interesting in Ghana itself I fear, given the choice of even worse macro pale lagers people have there. In any case this nor any other of these Tale beers belong on a supermarket shelf in Belgium, I regret to say. This will be the last time these guys disappoint me, that is for sure.

"Farmhouse ale", in this context to be interpreted as Belgian style saison, produced by this African enterprise established by Belgians in Ghana; flavoured with lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves, two seasonings I associate more with South East Asian cuisine than West African - but of course both plant species are cultivated in tropical regions around the world. Green-labelled steinie bottle from the Delhaize supermarket in Lokeren. Thick and creamy, somewhat rocky, dense, egg-white, even-bubbled head on a crystal clear pure 'old golden' robe with a column of enthusiastic sparkling rising up in the middle. Sweetish aroma of industrial apple juice, some minced lemongrass perhaps but vaguely so and in a sweeter kind of way than feels natural, ripe pear, banana peel, brioche, cotton cloth, hardly any kaffir but rather sugared lime juice from a bottle, wet cardboard, grass, hints of peach, sweat, wet sand and green fig. Rather sweet onset, though not in a cloying way; residual sugars over a basic fruitiness of sweet apple, pear and a whiff of banana, soured a bit by carbon dioxide, quite sharp in this one. Slick body, cereally pale malt sweet with this sweet apple juice effect thinly continuing, while a 'green' and somewhat perfumey flavouring comes in, probably representing the kaffir lime and the lemongrass, but both remain very vague and indistinguishable. A slight citric juiciness does linger at the back but maintains this vague, perfumey, eventually somewhat sourish character which neither says 'lemongrass' nor 'lime leaf' (of any kind); hops remain very mild and hardly provide any lasting bitterness. Filtered and way too clean for anything 'saison'-like, even taking the huge flexibility of the concept into account; this Ghanean farmhouse ale actually comes closer to an industrial Belgian blonde (think Leffe Blonde and the like) than anything else, is dramatically underhopped and monotonous and the admittedly conceptually interesting flavouring remains vague and hardly recognisable (if at all). Retronasally, something sourish and sweaty sticks for a while as well as something indeterminately sweetish, but in a way that reminds me much more of the average African pale macro lager than anything else - let alone saison. Odd, not a farmhouse ale even in the broadest sense of the word and lacking in character and bitterness: after that hibiscus beer of theirs I had last week, this one again fails to convince me - but within an African context, what can I say?

Hibiscus-flavoured beer (something I never quite liked, to be honest) by a peculiar supplier, apparently a young 'craft' brewery in Ghana (West Africa) founded by two Belgians who attended a brewing course in 'my' city of Ghent; the recipes seem to have been developed in Belgium, though, and I found this one - together with two others - on the shelves of a supermarket in Lokeren... Thick and foamy, egg-white, busily 'Brugse kant'-like lacing, even-bubbled and dense head on a clear, warm pale orangey blonde robe with vague rosy (fried salmon) tinge. Aroma of white soap, green banana, wet flour, roses or indeed hibiscus flowers but in a rather artificial way, unsugared bubblegum, industrial white bread, sugar substitute, freshly cut grass, unflavoured tooth paste, puddle water and a distant whiff of dried grapefruit peel which I suppose represents the "IPA" part. Sweetish, rounded onset but quite clean, with some notes of red apple, pear and unripe banana, sharply fizzy carbonation yet smooth mouthfeel; cereally 'basic' maltiness with a 'heated' kind of effect to it, vaguely reminiscent of industrial white bread crust, apart from a rather annoying bubblegummy side effect, perfumed with this blossomy but also soapy hibiscus effect - more or less recognisable as such, but again, in an artificial way, less herbal even than the typical hibiscus flavouring I had in other beers containing this ingredient (and more soapy even). The finish brings more of this artificial, soapy-blossomy hibiscus as well as a late dash of vaguely grapefruity bitterishness, which fails to fully develop, acquires only the faintest trace of grapefruit peel aroma and fails to stop that obnoxious soapiness - worse even, the sweetness goes on, and becomes very aspartame-like in the end, about the last thing one expects from anything with the letters 'IPA' on its label. This beer shows little development of flavour, is clearly aimed at the masses (even here - I am not familiar with the average Ghanaian beer consumer), is filtered and pasteurised and feels very artificial and lazy. The hibiscus is there but in an artificial way, dominating the whole thing without adding much, and the hops are so under-represented that the 'IPA' moniker is completely unearned to say the least. Present this to the average IPA lover and they will probably punch you in the face - deservedly so. I will cut it some slack because I guess there is not much else going on in Ghana in terms of craft beer - I only had industrial standard lager from that country so far - but then there is the fact that these guys collaborated with AB InBev before starting up this project and that alone is reason enough to be suspicious. Industrial macro bagger guised as a hip craft beer, this is - avoid, and I already regret that my enthusiasm got the better of me again so I am not looking forward to the two other Tale variants I bought at that supermarket...