22 oz bottle from Smyrna Beverage Center, Smyrna, GA, USA. $4.69.
Pour is a beautiful, tangerine orange body with tremendous clarity, good carbonation and a light and wispy head that offers some great lace.
The nose offers a LOT of west coast, medicinal, sinus clearing, grapefruit and citrus based hops.
I’m almost instantly annoyed by the beer as soon as it hits my taste buds. For all intents and purposes (in least in terms of its taste) this is an IPA. Not a problem, but in the BA database it is listed as a BSPA. There really isn’t much else here other than a strong citrus based, IPA profile.
All of that is fine, but the Westmalle yeast is simply not present in the taste. The beer is NOT even a Belgian IPA! The hop presence (which is very tasty BTW, and is in the manner of a “Fresh Hop” style) overwhelms any possible Belgian notes (either in terms of yeast or candi sugar).
Syrupy, viscous feel which is appropriate for a beer of this ABV.
This IS a tasty beer; it DOES have a really nice look and hop presence, but if this is a “Belgian” beer of any description, I’m a Dutchman! If I were to rate this to any kind of Belgian style it would be really poor. Frankly, confused.