Bruegel

Brewed by Brouwerij Van Steenberge
Style: Belgian Ale
Ertvelde, Belgium

Bottle. Deep red amber, quite clear, smallish head. Neutral sweet and burnt aromas. Burnt caramel flavours, rather sweet. Lightish body. A disappointment from Van Steenberge.

Explosive head ... all over my kitchen counter. Cloudy and amber-orange. Dusty, can-like nose. Light malts and light yeast aromas. Sharply citric and metallic with notes of orange and lemon. Slightly tart, maybe even sour at times. Dryish finish. Relatively easy to drink, but not complex or very flavorful.

Lagery gold pour. Intensely sweet malty-hoppy nose developing some gueuzish vinegar as it warms. In fact, it smells exactly like gueuze. But flavour-wise, crisply hoppy with a nicely rounded bready maltiness in the finish. Pleasantly metallic. Somewhere between a very sweet malty lager and a hoppy straw ale. Tasty and refreshing.

330ml Bottle: Aroma of apples, yeast, pale malts, and grains. Poured gold/amber/apple juice in color with a small, rocky, white head that lasted throughout. Clear. Sparkling. Full of extremely tiny particles throughout. Good to very good lacing. Flavor is medium sweet. Tastes of pale malts, grains, yeast, light apple, light fruit, slight dough, a hint of pollen, and a cloying sweetness. Light to medium body. Thin, oily texture becomes slightly dry. Average carbonation. carbonation. Cloyingly sweet, light yeast finish is lightly dry.

The real Bruegel was a master. This beer is not a master, but it is a decent basic beer that benefits from everything the Belgians do well. The appearance is wonderful--a sea of head, billowing and white, lacing nicely on the sides of the glass, and remaining in some quantity for quite some time. Hazy amber color. The aroma strikes me as the typical Belgian: clove, other spices, banana. My wife thought it had a bit of good bees wax to the aroma. The flavors were similar but weak--watery flavor profile, lacking much depth or any finish. The palate wasn't bad: a hint watery but a lively carbonation too. I was not struck by any marked sweetness or sourness that others might find. Overall, a beginners' Belgian, but it has a good fundamental composition (in need of sprucing up).

Coppery orange with a HUGE white head - really a nice looking beer. Clean, crisp malt aroma. Citrusy foamy woodsy and maybe a little mustytasting, Long, earthy finish, that is crisp and peppary.

Very weak and mellow, pours a light amber, turning darker in the glass, slightly sweet upon first taste, with a yeasty doughy malt character retaining dominance throughout. Maybe something I would try again if there is nothing else available.

Bottle; Nose of caramel and a tomatoy berry note (like a weak V-8 hint); hazy light brown with a medium beige head; flavor was coardboardy, must be an old bottle, with some caramel and spices.