Hanssens Mead the Gueuze

Formerly brewed at Hanssens Artisanaal
Style: Mead
Dworp, Belgium

Orange-honey color with foamy off-white head; lots of carbonation bubbles rushing to surface. Sweet and Sour sauce- the fragrance. Sour B.O. covered up by honeysuckle flower perfumes. (In a good way?) Dried apricot and candied fruits, bit of fingernail polish. Honey and apricot flavors with a tinge of sweetness that never gets out of balance with the sour base. Bit of lemon zest and horseblanket, some herbal spice. Almost like a Ricola cough drop. Mouthwatering sourness, somewhat light or moderate feel with a slight carbonic sting that helps keep this beer super refreshing. Highly drinkable gueze, some resemblance to a white wine.

From a bottle at Tria, poured a hazy orangish, with a good amount of head. Nice tart flavor with a little hint of sweetness.

Bottle. Body-still, light orange body with no bubbles. Nose-medium horse/funk, new horse blanket, honey, very interesting. Smells like the name describes. Taste-acidic, low funk, sharp mouthfeel, light metal, kinda odd, tastes like a very unsweet slightly off Geuze, light mint tea, leather, cotton, urea.

I was completely unimpressed with this. Having never been a fan of Lurgashall Meads, I just did not expect to have any love for this beer. Just not a good mixture os bittersweet and sour. The honey is slightly present in the nose, but the flavor is mostly the Gueuze. Quite tart, but has some crisp acidity. Just don’t quite care for the mouthfeel, not pleasant to drink at all.

Corked bottle (bought at Knightly in Orlando) and served in my Cantillion tulip:

Pours nearly still honey golden hue with no lace. The nose is very much gueuze like with bretty funk and sourness, oak, grassy, and some honey vapours. The taste follows suit with the gueuze the main component and the mead a background player. Funky, oxidization, woody and acidic with a touch of honey around the edges. The mouth feel is soft and delicate, dry boney finish. I like this more than expected. It should be listed as a gueuze than a mead... but the big shots will never allow that.

Dammit, I fucking spilled half of my pour. Aroma is skunky and funky with a bit of mineral. Shawn says that he can smell the honey in it, but I really can’t smell much of it- a touch, but not much. Taste is acidic, crisp, some sourness. Tastes like most of the honey has fermented out, but not so much that it has lost the essence. Decent.

Amber color with a huge rocky head that fades quickly to nil. Great smell is cheesy, earthy, with honey, wood and barnyard. A dry, crispy taste is lemony tart wheat, but not really sour. The mead seems to add a sweet touch to the brew. Good stuff. 5217

Interesting concept for sure. Aroma is mostly funky gueuze with just a hint of honey. Plenty of tart, acidic, farmy, woody and earthy funk. Just a hint of honey sweetness. Pours a still murky orange. Absolutely no head or appearance of carbonation. Falls a little flat on the tongue, however. The honey sweetness is a tad out of place amongst the earthy mustiness. Oily on the tongue with just a tiny amount of carbonation. Missed the mark a bit but a beer worth trying.