Expiry 23/12/2022.

330 mL bottle. Pour offers a mid-orange, amber, slightly hazed pour. White head, some nice retention and lace, with a significant film that settles across the beer in the chalice.

Nose offers some malt, but until it warms and opens it’s hard to distinguish much. When it does I get a little orange, but mostly solid, bready, relatively neutral notes.

The beer drinks a little like a very dry, English bitter, with some very mild hop character juxtapositioned against balanced malts. It reminds me a of less creamy Rochefort 6. Plenty of gentle bitterness, but it’s all beautifully tempered into a package that slides down very easily. A tiny bit of mild, soapy bitterness kicks in occasionally, once again all against the backdrop of a malt base.

There’s a lot going on here, this is a much more complex beer than first meets the eye (or the tastebuds). The reminiscing as it relates to Rochefort 6 continues as the beer warms, with wave after wave of increasingly creamy, beautifully carbonated, dry but full, light bitterness. The aftertaste is especially pleasing, with the dry bitterness puckering the mouth slightly, but also repeating the malt balance. Truly delicious.

Delicious, and a subtle beer that I think will escape many people. You’ve got to have a decent amount of beer drinking experience to fully appreciate this one.