Florisgaarden Ninkeberry

Brewed by Brouwerij Huyghe
Style: Fruit Beer
Melle, Belgium

An okay beer. Fruity aroma and veru fruity taste of mango, peach, pineapple, etc. Pour is golden with small head. Overall, okay beer, but nothing spectacular.

330ml bottle, label different from the one in the pictuie. Pours a slightly hazy pale yellow golden with small white head which vanishes quickly. Decent lacing, though. Strong aroma of tropical fruit (especially mango) and yeast. Citric note present. Medium-bodied fruit beer, with active to medium carbonation, fairly thick mouthfeel. Taste is closer to cranberry and other darker berries, mango - not so much. Fairly sweet, of course, but some hops in the background and a drier finish keep things fresh. Mild after taste. This is not a bad fruit beer, certainly less oppressive than some of the cherry beers from Belgium that I’ve drunk in the past. But, it it really beer?

330ml bottle
3.5% ABV
I tried this beer on September 2, 2009 at "Smokeless Joe’s" in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The bottle looked and felt more like a 250ml bottle than a 330ml bottle. The beer poured a hazy golden pink colour with a fizzy short-lived head. The aroma was very fruity with mango very apparent. The mouthfeel was medium-bodied, with medium-high carbonation. The flavour was sweet in a fruity sense (as opposed to the artificial sweetness in a Wittekerke Rose) with a little malt in the taste.

After reading the plethora of reviews from Canadian based beerpals, one has to wonder if it’s available stateside (not that they’re missing anything).

330 ml bottle from LCBO. Pours a cloudy dull yellowish gold with small white head. Aroma is strongly of tropical fruit juice. Taste is very much of tropical fruits (peach, mango) and very sweet, almost candyish. Pretty over the top on the sweetness. Pretty mild carbonation. Not something I’m in a rush to revisit.

Bottle. Pours fizzy like soda with a thin white head. It’s a slightly hazy peach colour. The aroma is full of fresh fruit, some slighly hoppy citrus notes with loads of peach, some lemon zest and plenty of mango. It’s fairly spritzy with lots of bubbles on the tongue and is light to medium in body. The flavour tastes much more artificial than the aroma with tropical fruity sugar, bubblegum and cheap after dinner candies.

330ml bottle, 3.5% a/v Kind of nervous with this one.. lets go! It pours a slightly hazy mild amber colour with a nice white head. Aroma is actually really nice, a decent hopped beer smell but with a fruit juice afternote. The taste is.. Im not sure. It tastes like an average Vex product, complete with the slightly chemically aftertaste. This is an interesting beer to try, or to share, but not the kind you come home with a box of. Interesting, not great.

330 ml bottle from LCBO, served cold in a tulip glass.

App.: Deep, dirty golden with a fair white head. Aroma: A ton of really fake, hard candy pineapple, other “tropical” fruits, some light biscuit malts, smells really sweet and sugary, Palate: Medium body and carbonation, slightly syrupy. Flav.: Wow, this is sweet, like a liquid pineapple hard candy, little else; absurdly sweet, no bitterness, slight tartness, a little astringent, thoroughly repulsive.

Well, another alco-pop. Didn’t expect much else.