Brugs Tarwebier

Brewed by Brasserie Union (Alken-Maes / Heineken)
Style: Belgian White (Witbier)
Jumet, Belgium

Antwerp, Belgium, Dec 2004. On tap at the place across from Kulminator. Had this while waiting for the Kulminator to open. Poured cloudy yellow with a medium white head. Very little aroma. Maybe a little lemon. Light sweet first sip and finishes lightly sour.

This is the Brugs Witbier with the Blue label (listed @ 4.8%, not the 5% listed here). A cloudy yellow color with a short lived white head. Nice yeast, banana, citrus and corriander smells. Unfortunately, the aroma doesn’t carry over to the flavor. Rather weak up front, with a slight soap flavor in the middle, the best flavor is in the finish with a slight peppery tang. Not one I would hunt down again.

Pale golden, weak head, unclear. Hard carbonation. Yeasty aroma with lemon. Mild flavour with yeast and citrus. Wheat. Overall rather sour and uncomplex.

Keg: Pale yellowy, thick milky appearance. Fairly citiric orange aroma. Mild clove corainder palate, fairly peppery and spicy. A little mild and under empahsised, normally I love white ales, but would probably have rated this higher in the middle of the afternoon rather than near the end of a pub crawl on a rainy night in London.

Bottle - Nice banana clove aroma. Light yellow color. A spicy banana flavor with good carbonation. Pretty good. (I am assumiing this is the same even though this was brewed by Kronenbourg).

On tap in Paris. Hardly any head, very nice sparkling unclear yellow boby. I don’t know if I got a bee from the wrong tap, but my glass had hardly any taste, apart from being refreshing - a real summer brew. Frankly, I was disappointed, but then again it my be due to a wrong tapping.

Had this off tap in a bar in Brussels. I ordered the "witbeir on tap", and was presently suprised. It was nice and smooth. Nothing extremely suprising in terms of flavor, but it was very drinkable, and I could have stuck with it all night.

The bottle is completely different here. This is a funny one. I have seen it in a number of bottle shops over the past few months, knowing that I hadn’t tasted and rated it, but somehow it wasn’t on my list of must dos. It seems my hesitation is somewhat well founded. Not because it is a bad beer, but simply because it is inoffensive. It looks like a wit and has an aroma like one, but there is not an assertion that one wants. It is rather bland really with the usual fruity and spicy esters but there is no real character. Its ok, but not worth the $6 I paid for the bottle.