Taras Boubla has had such a profound impact on many people, and some might say even on Belgian beer as whole, that Petit Boulba comes with some inevitable baggage. That’s a shame, but unavoidable I fear.

A pale lemon, cloudy body with astonishingly well formed head with remarkable retention and lace. As I have commented before, this is an absolutely undeniable and persistent trademark of De La Senne beers.

Nose has some predictable, clean hop notes and promises what the tastes ultimately deliver.

Whenever you take a beer that has a high hop presence, and then lower the ABV significantly, there is always an element of “hop water” that results. That isn’t to say that this beer is without presence in the mouth – it has some – but it does suffer a bit from what I feel is the inevitable marriage of relatively high hop presence with a very low ABV. The bitterness is light and drinkable, but the mouthfeel coupled with the hop profile means that the dreaded watery nature creeps in a little bit. For me, the combination of the hop profile and the ABV just doesn’t work very well, even if in the hands of the skilled brewers at DLS.

It’s clean and simple, and unsurprisingly it delivers exactly what it should so in that respect no complaints, but the rub is this. As a huge fan of low ABV beer in general I have found that they are best as malt forward beers. As soon as they become hop forward, that bitter, watery component starts to accumulate. In its defense, Petit Boulba is hands down the best beer that I have ever drunk at under 4% with a significantly hop forward profile. That does not include any English Bitters which I consider to be ALL malt forward, so don’t twist my words here!

In short, this is the best beer, brewed in a style/ABV combo that never works particularly well.