Baladin Super du Baladin

Brewed by Le Baladin
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Piozzo, Italy

Pours a hazy brown amber with a large yellow short lasting head. Well despite paying top $ for this this some 2 months ago and storing it in the fridge at all times I have to say I am very disappointed with this beer and I’m beginning to suspect the importer and/or bottle shop may not have treated it appropriately. I’m afraid I’m gonna have to try this in Europe next time I’m there. The brewery is not too far from my cousin’s place in Torino so there is every chance this will happen. Anyway I will rate it as I saw it and amend it next time I rate it. The aroma is a medium medicianal friars balsam? and bandaid with a touch of biscuity malt. Flavour wise it tastes like an old Chimay, stale watery yeasty caramel malty with the same medicinal touches as in the aroma. My colleage says he can get the apricot at the end but I’m nowhere on this. I don’t like rating off beers so I’m including this for compartive purposes only.

Sample BI Indy gathering 2/25/06 - Aroma is yeasty, sweet fruit, banana, and wet malt. Pours hazy yellow with small head and decent lacing. Flavor is cotton candy, malt, hops, almond, bread dough, and some spice. Palate is snappy and sweet. Interesting and tasty.

Gorgeous cloudy orange with a good white head. Heavy enough to leave some lacing. Nose of yoghurt and cider, definitely some lactic fermentation here. Mouth was just a little flat and heavy, with a tendency towards syrup. Taste sour cider, bread and yeast, deeper overall tone than the lighter Belgian tripel that I was expecting. A good Belgian Strong.

750ml bottle which looks to be bottles in Feb.05, and I have just cracked it open late Oct.08. Not exactly recommended or desirable, let’s just think of it as the Kulminator edition. I had this one years ago and remember it quite fondly. I’m going to assume this one has morphed into something new in it’s age oldness. Murky brown-amber color. Intense sour aroma of brandy and green apples. The mouthfeel is watery and devolved, with lots of sweet fruity characteristics. Meady, it leaves a sour twangy aftertaste. The aroma is really the downfall of this beer, like most past their prime. The rating only reflects the aged version, will re-rate with a new hopefully.

This beer is a beautiful dark tangerine with lots of tiny yeast sea monkeys, a short-lasting dense head and slight lacing. The palate is nice—full of enthusiastic carbonation and a light, refreshing mouth-feel. The aroma is heavy with tangerine and citrus, apricots, bright hops and alcohol. Retronasal aromas are pretty cool— juicy tangerine is amplified for a second bow.The flavor is well-balanced; not too bitter, not to sweet with a slightly bitter, average-lenth finish.

Bottle. Pours orange caramel, fizzy off white head. Aroma is dried fruit, malt, grass, alcohol. Flavor is funky, musty, meaty, wheaty, spicy, slightly fruity. I’m not a big fan. It lacks character, in my humble opinion.

This is an identify scroll. A: a hazy orange potion. A potion of fruit juice. Very nice perfume of coriander, yeast and plenty of fruit. The best analogy for the taste I could think of was coriander seed sprinkled on watermelon. I don’t know if it was specifically watermelony esters or just vague melon-ness combined with the watery texture that made me think that. Very light and sweet and fruity, finishing dry and watery with a slight note of possible infection - that garbage juice taste. Then again maybe it was some weird spice i can’t identify like asafoetida or something weird. A mixed bag overall but would be good to taste a fresher/better cellared bottle.

750 ml bottle. Hazy, light orange body under a creamy, almost nitro-like, off-white head. Sweet aromas of spiced apple, candy, apricot, banana, dried fig, honey and flowers. Slight mustiness underneath it all. The flavor is moderately sweet, lightly acidic and lightly bitter. The finish remains sweet with a very light bitterness. Medium body and watery texture that thickens through the finish and turns more velvety. Lively carbonation. The flavors lingers for a good long while. Delicious.