Old-timey brown 'tafelbier' produced for an old-timey drinks shop in Roeselare; the history of this Piro brand goes back to the early 20th century when these Belgian table beers were still a big thing volume-wise, and I recall having read about it in my early days of beer studying on some long defunct OBP website but never actually encountered it - so I was curious enough to taste it when it was offered to me jokingly on Proevertjesdag. Thick and foamy, coarse, lacing, pale yellowish beige head on a clear (filtered) very dark caramel brown robe with ruby red glow. Aroma of a typical oldskool tafelbier: homemade cola, industrial caramel and caramel candy, wet nutmeg, used tea bags, moist brown paper, lots of aspartame, iron. Sweet, onedimensional onset, no esters, bit metallic but notably less so than e.g. the Piedboeuf range (the only one in tafelbier still sounding familiar to most Belgians), actively carbonated, smooth mouthfeel (light of course but still a little bit 'fuller' than average for this ABV for some reason). Caramel candy-ish middle with a very vaguely nutty aspect, not as sweet and sugary as I was fearing actually (and indeed less sugary than the average 'bruin tafelbier'), developing a mild bitterness in the end which probably comes more from an aspartame-like sweetening agent beginning to act 'chemically' than from hops. Something metallic 'zings' along. Utterly old-fashioned, it even surprised me that this brand, now under Strubbe, is even still brewed to this day, but as usual these local table beers are, well, very local, if they are still around in the first place. I always find it interesting to stumble upon something 'historical' like this - look at how outdated the label is, as if it has not changed since labels became officially mandatory in Belgium, and that is probably not far from the truth. Very oldskool, something from another era, and in comparison with the AB InBev version of Belgian table beer known nationally as Piedboeuf, feeling a bit more natural, a bit less sweet and a bit less metallic; within the obvious limitations of its style, this is far from the worst.

Theo - Alvinne's four-grain tripel best known for its barrel variants - became Théoden in Margaux red wine barrels, and thus made it into the one but last Fellowship series. Two year old 75 cl bottle shared on Proevertjesdag. Egg-white, moussey, thick and dense head over a hazy peach blonde robe with pale orangey tinge - clearly from the red wine. Aroma of ripe peach, green beech leaves or even garden nettles (oddly and unexpectedly), cream cheese, yellow onion turning sweet after prolonged stewing, vanilla from the oak, grape seed oil, apricot, unripe pineapple, vine leaf, lingonberry jam. Fruity onset, sweetish as in ripe blueberries, nectarine and white grape, the latter of course primarily from the Margaux and acting quite strong; softish carb, rounded and smooth body. Fluffy-bready malt core soaked in lovely Margaux wine flavours, adding further fruitiness, but lacking the typical cedar-like aspects this wine often exhibits - but then this green leaf-like element does return retronasally and must have something to do with it. Yellow plum and ripe purple gooseberry effects add light tartness - all coming from the wine barrel treatment of course - before drying tannins set in, matching with a leafy hop bitter note and warming, yet overall very well hidden alcohol. Complex in a way only Alvinne could have achieved with the old tripel genre, demonstrating that ageing tripels on wine barrels is something still not sufficiently done in Belgium (or beyond). A beer for a king indeed. I could kick myself for not having followed this Fellowship project anymore in the past few years, it is still full of wonders and surprises - just when Alvinne has announced that this project will not be continued anymore next year.

Light postmodern 'grisette' brewed with spelt and wheat malt and intended as a delicate summer quencher - to be drunk at maximum two years after bottling. I have made the mistake not to check the date before buying this at Struise's webshop and ended up with a bottle of no less than six years old - so according to the brewery, which sadly has even ceased to exist about a year ago, this sample is already four years past its prime... Well, I had much older beers than that, even in beer styles not intended for long cellaring, so here we go - for science, and as a salute to this late, but once brightly sparkling 'nature brewery'. Thinnish but remarkably stable, snow white, breaking, tiny-bubbled head leaving little to no lacing, misty yellow blonde robe with pale apricot tinge, but quickly shifting to a muddy brownish ochre when the sediment of dead yeast and proteins is added to the glass. Aroma of - very oddly - black licorice (can only be a result of prolonged fermentation by the special yeast strain they used), very old honey, eucalyptus, white bread slices, boiled chicken cutlet, blossoming lilies, acacia, a babbling mountain stream but - in the end - also a bit of a muddy pool. Crisp onset, lots of minerally effervescence - like bottled mineral water - rushing through a sweetish onset of freshly cut green pear, unripe melon and green kiwi, making its way through a slender and supple body of pale-cereally maltiness, like fresh white bread pulp. There is a slightly sharper grainy sourishness from the spelt and a soapy touch from the wheat, but both remain subtle; retronasally, amidst floral hops which have been well preserved in a very light beer of six years old I must say, these odd fermentation effects of eucalyptus and licorice, though strongly diluted by this stage. A mixture of subtly sweet, subtly sour and subtly bitter fills the finish, in an almost airy, impressionistic way - very much like it was intended, for sure. Too bad the second half of the bottle turned my glass into a visually unattractive glass of mud, in which all that sediment brought those weird but admittedly entertaining eucalyptus and licorice aspects even more to the foreground - but then, I can still feel the original concept behind all that, and initially this concept was even well conveyed. A good occasion to dwell on Nevel for a while - I remember them in their Katjelam phase, promoting their beers very actively at Carnivale Brettanomyces in Amsterdam, then watched them turn into the well-respected and refined brewery Nevel was, and then finally heard of their demise last year. It was an interesting ride for them, I think - I hope their concept of keeping things as close to nature, or the backyard, as much as possible, will continue to inspire other brewers in these dreary times of declining craft beer enthusiasm. Too bad I missed this Weide when it was young - but the fact that it is still enjoyable today, is a testimony to this brewery's skills. Cheers to Nevel!

The 2025 edition of this yearly Excellence du Val-Dieu, basically Val-Dieu Triple aged on barrels that previously contained red wine made by the monks of the Lérins abbey located on an island off the Côte d'Azur. Basically a return to the first edition in this Excellence series, but notably less strong for some reason, so probably best viewed as a new beer altogether. Shared by Kürt on Proevertjesdag. Pale yellowish beige, moussey, cobweb-lacing, fairly stable head slowly dissipating over a hazy ochre-tinged peach blonde robe, turning cloudy with sediment. Aroma of soggy biscuit, white port or indeed sweet dessert wine, almond, honey liqueur, coriander seed, vanilla-exuding oak wood, pear in brandy, candied apricot, straw, (over)ripe yellow plum. Sweet, fruity onset, lots of peach and ripe pear, touch fig and some banana, medium carbonated with rounded, 'fluffy' body; brioche-like sweet middle with even a hint at marzipan somewhere, bready in a very soft way, wood effects remaining limited to this vanillin aroma retronasally but very soft on the tannins. Almond, autumn apples and plum jam join in the finish, along with very mild floral hop bitterness and a far less mild, hot-peppery booziness making me wonder if the barrels in which this tripel spent time did not originally contain the abbey's liqueur rather than its wines... Sweet, hot boozer, lacking a bit in restraint and finesse like the others in this series and not worth its price tag if you ask me, but generally enjoyable - at least much more so than 'just' Val-Dieu Triple, which is not very highly ranked in my book. This goes to show that the old tripel genre is very well suited for wine barrel ageing - this has been proven much more convincingly by other breweries before and still offers a lot of possibilities in the future.