6.5

Appearance - 5 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 6.5

Zitrusgeruch. Hefig-fruchtiger Beginn, milde Süße, Pfefferminze, minimale Herbe. Süffig, weich, nie alkoholisch, mittellanger Abgang. Gefällt. 8/10/10/10//10

5.5

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6

A clear dark golden beer with a white head. Aroma of intense herbal malt, spices, yeast, raisins. Taste of intense herbal malt, bubblegum, belgian yeast, hay, moderate carbonation.

7.6

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

Bottle. No label, just a card hanging on the neck of the bottle. Nice bronze wax over the crowncork. Color: Clear copper, thin beige head. Aroma: Malty, spicy notes, vinuous hints. Taste: Herbal, spicy, malty, raisins, some candy sugar, ubtle vinuous notes. Slightly creamy, over medium body. Low carbonation. Over moderate sweet, light bitterness. Long lasting dry-ish raisins and spicy finish. Well made, Pinot Noir BA could have been somewhat stronger.

5

A clear golden beer with a white lacing. Aroma of belgian yeast, mid sweet pale malt, herbs. Taste of herbal pale malt, belgian yeast, spices, yeasty finish.

4.3

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 4 | Flavor - 4 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 4

Mild kräutriger, etwas herber Beginn. Wenig würzig, leicht hefig, konstant, überuas langweilig. 9/6/6/6/9/6

4.3

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 4 | Flavor - 4 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 4

Heller, leicht muffig getreidiger Beginn. Geringe Süße, leicht hefig, konstant, mittellanger Abgang. Meh. 9/6/6/7//6

5.5

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6

Almost clear orange golden beer with a white head. Aroma of herbal and spicy malt, some glue. Taste of caramelized spicy malt, spelt, yeast, high carbonation.

6.8

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 6.5

Hazy amber colour , white foam. Sweet and herbal tripel with a lot of floral notes.

7.1

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7.5

The first commercialized beer by Hoptwins, two hobby brewers in Hasselt trying out the market since 2022 with this spiced tripel, one in an intended series of beers dedicated to well-established and respected businesses in Hasselt. This first one is dedicated to the Quetin butchery in the Maastrichterstraat and more specifically its former owner, Joseph Quetin, who passed away in 2018, aged 94. Tripel flavoured with ginger and mint (!), claimed to pair well with meat dishes... Very thick and foamy, egg-white, large- but even-bubbled and densely knit head, resting stable but eventually hollowed out, on an initially crystal clear 'old golden' beer with lots of visible sparkling, turning hazy and deeper orange-tinged with sediment. Very aromatically spicy aroma of indeed ginger and more precisely Jamaican ginger beer (including the soapy factor - but still primarily spicy), far less peppermint (fortunately, perhaps) but still faintly noticeable in the background, basil and star aniseed even, freshly cut red apple, bread crust, cooked parsnip, raw turnip, unsugared chewing gum, rusk, unsalted peanuts, pond water, damp earth, cooked salsify, bergamot, field flowers. Sweetish onset but nowhere sticky, vague sourish undertone, fruity esters reminiscent of red apple, nectarine and Cape gooseberry, lively and minerally carbonated but in a small-bubbled and therefore unintrusive way; smooth, quite full body, lightly thinned by alcohol but feeling sufficiently solid. Cereally, slightly sourdoughy and sweetishly bready malts soaked in a lot of ginger, exhibiting both its spiciness and soapiness in a rather pushy and intrusive way, dominating the finish over that hint of peppermint (unable to act out its fraîcheur under all that ginger), floral hop bitterness (remaining gentle) and warming, tequila-like alcohol (a tad peppery and perhaps somewhat too present, but still acceptable). The final impression, after swallowing, is one of a ginger beer with a bready component - or indeed a bready tripel suffering from an unfair amount of ginger. I had ginger-flavoured ales as well as actual ginger 'beers' (not containing any cereals) before and frankly this one overdoes the ginger to that extent that it seems to hold the middle between those two. Very spicy, bit soapy, lightly astringent but also sweet-honeyish, warming finish. Okay, I get it (keeping that old De Graal's Gember in mind): these guys explicitly warned about something overly spicy, but then I wonder if this was really the intention, knowing how powerful even a small amount of ginger can be; I cannot imagine this overly 'gingery' beer matching well with any meat dish I can think of right now so this is, in the end, just another old-fashioned Belgian spice beer, strong, sweet, malty, yeasty and drowned in grandmother's old spice rack. Too many of these have passed since the Belgian regional beer revival of the seventies, eighties and nineties, and I am done with them - I have nothing against ginger as such, but there is a time and a place for everything, and this one just has too much of it. I am sure the diehard ginger lovers will rave about it, though, and I cannot deny that in its base this beer is well-structured without any real flaws (as typifies Craywinckelhof-brewed beers), so I will be lenient in scoring, but one of these is more than enough for me.