Score
6.95
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13/V/21 - 33cl bottle as a gift, shared @ home, BB: 14/X/22 (2021-387) Thanks to Alengrin for the bottle!
Clear orange blond beer, small creamy to aery irregular off-white head, pretty stable, non adhesive. Aroma: pink grapefruit, some tropical fruits, juicy, passion fruits, floral as well, little soapy impression. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: very fruity, tropical fruits, passion fruits, mango, nice gentle bitterness, some grapefruit, malty. Aftertaste: grains, hay, cow fodder, some citrus, tropical fruits, pretty juicy, grapefruit. Decent one!
The newest Kerel to date, from the trusted 'apothecarian bottle', now with lilac label; apparently the first in an intended series of organic beers. Made with French malt (barley and wheat) and American hops. Bottle straight from the brewery, thanks Charlotte for the service! Medium thick, eggshell-white, moussy, regular, non-lacing head fed by lively sparkling running through an initially crystal clear yellow blonde beer with metallic 'old gold' hue, misty with sediment. Aroma of withering kitchen herbs and garden weeds, soggy white bread, oxidized green apple slices, banana peel, damp straw, minerals, overripe cucumber, pumice, bread crumbs, flour, funky hints of stale urine and sweating Camembert cheese, moist white pepper, talcum powder. Spritzy onset, sharpish and very minerally carbonation, restrained fruitiness of green banana, some green apple and Conference pear, smooth and light body; the minerally effects keep accompanying a light-footed white-bready and cereally maltiness, with the wheat malt adding a flour-like effect and a very dim sourish touch but little soapiness; the bread crumb-like aspect becomes somewhat stronger in the end, where it meets - still enlivened by minerals, becoming a bit chalky even - a grassy and weedy hop bitterness with a light zesty edge to it, lasting medium long and adding retronasal notes of dried field flowers, freshly cut grass and old lemon zest, but also a vague touch of herb cheese (old hops?). The minerality, strong from nose to finish, never goes away, but adds to the intended 'quenchability' of this simple, but effective beer; it ends quite dry and never plays up the cliché of the sweet, overcoriandered, malty and sugary 'outdoors café blonde' of which there are far too many around already. Slick, dry, hoppy the 21st-century Belgian way, quenching, minerally and modern interpretation of a blonde, indeed perhaps even closer to an English style golden ale (albeit with still 'Belgian' breadiness and effervescence) than to e.g. Belgian blonde abbey beers and the like. Easygoing with a contemporary feel, I could easily chug down quite a few of these on a benign spring afternoon.