Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
(Keg at Pikkulintu Puotila, 20240919) The beer poured dark brown with reddish tint, and hazy. Its head was medium sized and white. Aroma had malts, berries, candi sugar, sourness and toasted notes. Palate was medium bodied with medium carbonation. Flavours were malts, berries, candi sugar, toasted notes, sourness, tartness and bitterness. Aftertaste malty, tart and bitter. A tasty and balanced Oud Bruin from a new brewery.
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7.5
Blonde ale by Rolling Hills fermented with Bifidobacterium, the anaerobic bacterium turning glucose into lactic acid and acetic acid, sometimes used in yoghurt (and frankly I never saw this one explicitly advertised in any sour beer so far, though it doubtlessly occurs naturally in many sours); the beer was then aged in French oak barrels, in the end creating an 'aged pale', probably inspired by the Petrus Aged Pale that made Bavik famous in American craft beer circles a couple of decades ago. Thinnish but regular, off-white, delicately 'Brugse kant'-like lacing, opening head over an initially crystal clear, apricot blonde beer with warm old-golden glow, turning misty and a bit more orangey with sediment. Strong bouquet of indeed artisanal Romanian yoghurt, 'Fromage de Herve', sweaty feet, wet oak wood including its vanillin scent, raw radish, lemon juice, goat cheese, dry white wine, green apple, yellow plum, gooseberry, wet hay, sour grapes, clay, volatile touches of strawberry, homemade vinegar, lime, musty cellar. Very estery onset, lots of sour fruits like green gooseberry, green plum and green apple, but also hints of pear and peach, notably tart and very lemony as well, even actually tasting like lime juice at first; refined but active carbonation only accentuates the sourness, which evolves into a thoroughly yoghurty lactic acidity, but also - as expected - a sharper vinagery streak. Rounded pale malty core, white-bready, severely dried by the acids but also richly adorned by all that fruitiness, which in itself is soon amplified by the barrel treatment, adding a very white grape-like factor to the whole. Woody tannins in turn reinforce the dryness established by the acids, but the latter burn through it all, with a homemade fruit vinegar-like aspect piercing deep into the finish; vague floral notes are present, but it is this sharper yoghurty lactic acidity, carrying all that radiant yellow-green fruitiness on its back, which gets the last word. Puckering sourness from beginning to end here, with very lemon- and lime-like effects, but compared with e.g. many American sour ales, this certainly stands the comparison favourably - or even tops many of those. 'Le goût américain', as Boon says - but a tad too acidic and vinegary for me to fully enjoy. Very interesting and memorable creation, though - perhaps one to store away in a deep corner of the cellar to forget for a year or ten, like I once did with Petrus Aged Pale, with delicious results...
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 4 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 4
Black colour, beige foam. Nose of coffee, roasted malts, vanilla. Taste is very sugary, artificial sweetness, clouing syruppy. Not my cup of tea.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
330ml bottle. Cloudy, chestnut colour with ruby shimmer and average, frothy, slowly diminishing, somewhat lacing, dark beige head. Yeasty, vinous fruity, woody and mildly tangy aroma, notes of oak, blue grapes, grape juice, red wine, blue berries, some bramble, black currant, whiffs of marmite. Taste is mildly tart, slightly dry woody and yeasty, vinous fruity, minimally tangy and tannic, hints of oak, blue grapes, red wine, unripe dark berries, a touch of plum. Minimally creamy, watery texture, minimally dry and minimally astringent palate, medium, dense, foamy carbonation. Harmonious, homogeneous, balanced, unobtrusive, not overly complex - nice.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6.5 | Flavor - 6.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 6.5
Bottle, shared with Laura, while cycling with our racebikes and looking for a place to pauze for a bit and have a quick meal or snack, we stumbled upon a cardboard sign that pointed towards someone's garden basically. We stopped and asked whether they also had a little food and they did actually have great pancakes with strawberries, ice and whipped cream and behold: a beer I hadn't rated yet. -- Unclear orange voor, huge foamy off-white head that lasts for a long time. Aroma is malts, moderately hoppy. Flavor is malts, stronger hops, typical Belgian style IPA imo, not one of those intens tropical fruity ones. Not bad.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
25/VII/24 - 33cl bottle from De Hopduvel (Gent), shared @ home, BB: I/2027 (2024-606)
Pretty clear dark brown beer, huge irregular fizzy beige head, crackles down quickly, leaving a bit of lacing in the glass. Aroma: yeasty, very yeasty, lots of ripe to overripe banana, CO2, cough syrup, some dried fruits, soft roast, milk chocolate, pretty oxidized, impression. MF: lots of carbon, medium body. Taste: sweet sugary start, lots and lots of overripe banana, caramel, sugary, soft roast, a hint of chocolate. Aftertaste: bitter touch, a bit metallic, some cocoa powder, sugary, caramel, oxidised, dried fruits, cardboard, some alcohol, grains, a bit thin, not very convincing.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6.5 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
Waffle-flavoured (literally!) pastry stout seemingly intended as a small-scale experiment; bottle at café De Kleine Kunst in the Heirnis quarter of Ghent. Medium sized, greyish beige, slowly opening and eventually (from vegetable fats in the waffles?) dissolving head over a black robe with thin mahogany edges. Aroma initially dominated by steel pipe iron, rainwater and something sweaty, but improving when warming up, unveiling dark chocolate, coffee grounds, caramel candy, brownies, roasted walnuts, old hazelnuts, milk powder, liquorice, black cherries and a solventy note (shoe polish). Sweet onset yet not overly cloyingly so, some black cherry, blueberry jam and candied fig, softly carbonated with full, oily mouthfeel; slick toffeeish, milk-chocolatey to eventually dark-chocolatey core, lots of lactose sweetness edging the inherent bittersweetness of these malts; bitterish mocha effect in the end alongside a return of that liquorice element and notes of fig and bayleaf, followed by a warming brandy-like alcohol glow in which the coffee bitter element comes a bit further to the foreground. Decent enough, but more ‘generically’ a kind of basic pastry stout for beginners than specifically a ‘waffle stout’, because I did not taste any of those at all (maybe for the better!).
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 5.5 | Flavor - 6.5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Blonde by Rolling Hills, the guys who started off with reviving the old Petre Devos brand in the Flemish Ardennes; bottle at café De Kleine Kunst in Ghent. Off-white, medium thick, somewhat irregular, opening head on a misty peach-tinged golden blonde beer. Aroma of quite strong DMS (old potatoes, overcooked white cabbage), unripe banana, soggy bread, withering lettuce, cooked turnips, damp straw, old dried paper glue, something vaguely sulfuric, damp straw. Dryish onset, some green pear and unripe peach fruitiness, marred by painfully stinging overcarbonation; very light banana touch through a cereally core with old white bread- and leftover dough-like aspects, adding a pinch of clove-like phenols and softly bittering earthy and floral hops in the finish, next to a more earthy yeast effect and the retronasal return of DMS. Very ordinary blonde with too much DMS and too little hops for me, lacking dramatically in the ‘fraîcheur’ this type of beer benefits so much from; not sure about the badger association, but the ‘lelijk’ (ugly) qualification seems appropriate enough, I am afraid!
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
Bottle at De Dingen Kortrijk. Clear amber colour lasting white head. Some esters. Some hop Some grapefruit flavour. Some earthiness. It's fine. Malts are ok. Simple not breaking down walls. But it's competent enough. Ok
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
Bottle. Color: Hazy orange, white head. Aroma: Strong rural funk, fruity grape, vinuous. Taste: Moderate tart, strong rural funk, fruity notes of grape and citrus, oak wood. Dry-ish finish. Light sweetness, very light bitterness. Medium body, below average carbonation.