Abbey tripel brewed 'in the name of' the St. Godelieve abbey, founded in the 17the century by benedictines in Bruges, now no longer in function (the last sisters left in 2013) but a protected and allegedly beautiful site I must absolutely visit one day; I wonder if the sisters, supposing they would still rule the place, would have given former cab driver Joeri Cools permission to use their abbey for his rather tasteless commercial exploitation of lost abbeys by linking soulless cliché beers to them... The man started this idea with his Bavo beer for the St. Baafs abbey in Ghent - a ruin since the 16th century but historically and spiritually one of the city's most sacred sites in my opinion. More importantly in this context, let us not forget that Cools has been in the trade for much longer than that, as I recall a coincidental ride in his taxi almost ten years ago now, when he was busy developing his Libidus range of 'aphrodisiac' beers - here gathered under "Let It Beer", the first of a series of 'bierfirma's' he created. After "Let It Beer", apparently "United Beers" ensued, and "Iedereen Bavo" also seems to be one of his beer-producing companies - in short, the man has a history of creating one little company after another to exploit his commercial brands, and with this one having been entered as a "United Beers" product issued by "Iedereen Bavo", I admittedly got lost in the web he has woven... I think the bottom line is that Cools remains determined to conquer at least East Flanders with his commercially oriented beers and I fear that "United Beers" is not even the last of his projects. The whole bunch, however, whether it be "Let It Beer", "United Beers" or "Iedereen Bavo", is executed at established breweries, and I am willing to bet that they all came from the kettles of originally Boelens and that production later shifted to Eutropius (now BCB). Clearly, all of them were simply commissioned by Cools, who acts as a client and has nothing to do with the recipe or the production process. Time for a thorough clean-up of all of Cools's creations, I would say - and I regret he has given up his taxi job years ago, because I stumbled upon him regularly in the past whenever I randomly took a cab here in Ghent... Anyway: my overly elaborate introduction here is the very reason I have been keeping this bottle aside for five months or so, I just could not bring myself to decipher all the Cools beers and their relations to one another, until today. Initially foamy and glass-filling, egg-white, busily plaster-like lacing, thinning but very stable head on an initially clear 'old golden' robe with pale orangey tinge and disparate bubbles here and there, turning misty with sediment. Aroma of old potatoes, damp straw, coriander seed (and a lot - but in a dull and 'old' kind of way), 'graanjenever', linseed, soggy white bread, pond water, overripe turnip, spoiled green cabbage or 'dirty' aquarium water, overcooked broccoli (DMS), apple peel, clove, cooked meat to indeed chicken broth, valerian flowers (which is not an agreeable odour if you know it), withering watercress, something vaguely juniper-like. Fruity onset, sweet with clear banana ester though not in an overly bubblegummy way, peach and pear notes too, sharpish carbonation stinging here and there; rounded mouthfeel, slick white-bready pale malts, straightforward, with residual sweetness on top, honeyish, connecting with the floral aromas provided by the hops - which then proceed to add 'end bitterness' too, balancing out the sweetness but not entirely so. Coriander seed, meanwhile, has been present from the start, has grown stronger towards the finish and finally dominates retronasally, alongside those floral elements, a very strong dosage of 4-vinyl-guaiacol (clove, but also turning chicken-soupy and even meaty) and lingering estery fruitiness. Unsurprisingly at this point, a warming, 'graanjenever'-like alcohol glow ensues, but fortunately it does not behave too indecently. The shamelessly opportunistic marketing behind this product is one thing, being intellectually dishonest in gratuitously claiming this is a historical beer another - and enough to put Cools on the stake for heresy had he lived in the actual 17th century - but if you come up with one 'beer firm' after another and one fake 'abbey beer' after another, then at least try to be ambitious and create something worthwile and original instead of the umpteenth Belgian abbey tripel cliché, which in this case is not even technically flawless. This is wrong in so many ways.

18/VI/25 - 33cl can @ Trollekelder (Gent), BB: n/a (wtf, how can you put beer in the market in 2025 without a date???) (2025-549)

Clear pale blond beer, big creamy white head, stable, adhesive, leaving a nice lacing in the glass. Aroma: malty, grains, some citrus, a hint of tropical fruits even, grassy, a little piny touch. MF: ok carbon, medium to light body. Taste: a bit sweet up front, sugary even, a bit malty, some tropical fruits, honey, a bit oxidized, some cardboard. Aftertaste: slightly sweet still, malty, more oxidation, grains, ok but not really good.

Bottle from Delhaize.
A: clear golden, big, foamy, white head.
A: ripe apple, pear, wet grass, soap, jenever.
T: sweet apple, pear, pale malt, spices.
F: bitter grassy & floral hoppy finish, phenolic notes, warming jenever-like alcohol.
P: medium body, slick texture, fizzy carbonation.
More stereotypes, please!

Joeri Cools is a familiar face in the Ghent beer scene, for inventing one brand after another - starting off with the Libidus beers, which I got to know seven years ago from the man himself when he was still a cab driver. The Libidus range along with the Coucou brand currently belong to a company called Let It Beer which is only partially owned by Cools (if this is even still the case today - I should ask him if I come across him in Ghent), while his 'own' beers fall under a new company called United Beers, first and foremost comprising a range of abbey beers (Bavo among others) which are heavily promoted all over Belgium. These 'holy' abbey beers recently got the company of this very profane Julientje, a pale lager aimed at partying students and referring to a snack developed by Julien Taghon, long-time owner of "De Gouden Saté" snackbar in the heart of Ghent's university and students' district; after his death in 2013, his children named the snack (consisting of fries, saté spicing, mayonnaise, stewed beef sauce and toasted onions) after their late father. And then, so many years later, Joeri Cools pops up, sensing that there is money to be made and coming up with this 'festive' pils - but of course annoyingly refusing to disclose where it is actually brewed; my bet is on Eutropius, now called BCB, but I could be wrong and have no hard evidence - another thing to accost him for if our paths cross again in the city. Long story short: decorative can depicting partying students and talking of "Premium Belgian Pils", bought at a Delhaize supermarket. Medium sized, stable if partially breaking, snow white, intricately cobweb-lacing head over a crystal clear, notably pale straw-yellow blonde beer with greenish tinge and disparate strings of sparkling. Weak aroma of soggy bird seed, withering lettuce, mineral water, industrial white bread, corn, rainwater, dusty grains, grass somewhere. Sweetish but otherwise neutral onset, no relief at all with straightforward corn- and malt extract-like 'pure' and bland graininess, slender and slick but rather tasteless with some minerality from the carbonation adding some refreshment; the finish, luckily, does add a relatively - for this kind of beer - firm dosage of grassy, somewhat leafy hops, bringing bitterness that lasts a bit, though thinly so. Whatever little flavour the 'malt' offered, has completely faded by the time the finish is reached, leaving nothing but some minerality and the dying remainders of this hop bitter element. Fleetingly thin, superficial 'pilsje', I guess the very pale colour was already a sign of how diluted this was going to be; feels like some Mexican macro lager but with more hops, which is about the only positive thing I can say here. Typical 'pure commerce': using the name of a locally legendary 'friturist', positioning it in supermarkets and who knows where else, and then offering this utterly bland, thin, diluted macro lager. Yet, as said, there are no heavy off-flavours here and the hops really try hard, so I will rate this like any macro pale lager with 'premium' hop profile: just a little bit above the worldwide ocean of similar products that probably tens of millions of people still sadly regard as the 'standard' in beer.