29/21/22 Best Before.

If I’m honest, I really don’t understand this beer.

Out of the bottle, it looks good. There’s an incredible, rocky head, and some great lace. The body is a less remarkable, light amber/orange (some would say ‘copper’, but for me the clarity is not here) body.

The nose offers a decent, malty, lightly acidic touch. The tastes reflect the same.

The reason the beer confuses me a bit is that I don’t really get any Belgian Pale notes here, and it feels a bit like a beer that could have been born in the UK or the USA. There’s a solid malty backbone, with some hop character in the back end. It finishes quite dry, and leaves a paradoxically (I usually associate nut notes with malty, sweetness) slightly nutty, lingering aftertaste. To emphasize the point there is not a great deal of depth here.

I think on a blind tasting I would never report any Belgian character. I’ve come to learn that beer can be very odd when comparing origin, and label, and reported style, and a bunch of other characteristics to the contents, but this one seems quite far fetched on a number of those points.

As a “Belgian” this will disappoint. As a solid, well-made, balanced, relatively simple beer it may be OK, and perhaps even satisfy. Interesting without being “interesting” if that makes any sense at all!