Hanssens Mead the Gueuze

Formerly brewed at Hanssens Artisanaal
Style: Mead
Dworp, Belgium

375mL bottle. Light golden orange color with a large fizzy white head. Musty aroma with a sharp tartness. Heavy floral sweet honey character up front, with a bracing tart component. Barnyard flavors, wet hay, horse blanket manifest. Lingering funkiness in the finish, slight acetic dryness. Mouthfeel is light, very dry.

375 ml bottle, via dsnowden. Pours a dark honey gold under a large, very fizzy, very loud, off-white head that faded quickly to a thin ring. The nose is quite mead dominated, lots of honey in the center, but a vinegary funkiness dancing around the edges. Like a Gueuze with too much dark malts. Flavorwise, it really comes across and a dry sparkling mead. No tartness or vinegar, just a dry white wine like quality. Some bretty farmhouse funk on the finish. Mouthfeel is medium bodied with a dry finish and fizzy spritzy carbonation. Really quite odd, not a good mead or a good Gueuze, just somewhere in limbo. Not not sure I’d go for this one again. It’s hard to believe that it’s just 30% mead, cause it pretty well dominated both the aroma and flavor.

375, corked and baled. Pours a bright, amber-tinged medium copper. Huge funky nose with little swirling whiffs of sweet honey in there as well. Pleasant light body with tight, soft carb. Gorgeous in the glass and a gorgeous drinker too. Mid-palate has plenty of acrid funk but there’s a tangy tartness to it that’s somehow also dry, or at least maybe a bit acetic. Finish is tart and puckery. This is a treat of a beer that is a gentle stepping stone for the noob into the world of gueuze-y sour.

Golden-orange color with a thin white head. Lots of honey in the aroma with hints of sour cherries and funk in the background. Sweet honey notes clash with the sour gueuze flavors and it leaves an "off" metallic taste in my mouth... not a big fan.

[587-20070908] 12.7floz @ Sourfest 2007 (Buffalo, NY, w/ rudolf, frylock, IPFreely, jerc, swoopjones). Honeyed grain alcohol aroma has light musty spruce wood notes and a bit of skunk. Hazy, orange brown body with a quick bubbly white head. Honey sweet grain alcohol continues in flavour with wood spruce. Medium body. Has a strange mustiness.

12.7 oz bottle. After the cork launched with major force, the beer poured a clear (other than the dregs) golden with a monstrous fizzy white head that quickly disappeared (odd considering the big explosion and tons of carbonation in the body).

The aroma is yeasty and floral with some acidic and tart fruitiness and clove honey that becomes more pronounced as it warms.

The flavor is sweet clove honey and a big tart acidic apple flavor. Some sourness comes out in the finish as it warms. The mouthfeel is medium bodied with lots of sharp carbonation.

Overall, an interesting beer. It tastes more like a cider mixed with a mead rather than a gueuze and mead (too apple-y).

Bottle @ Rudolf’s ’Sourfest’. Crisp golden yellow with a small white head. Very musty aroma, alcholic presence with fruity honey notes. Flavour threatens to be quite sour and follow through on the funky aroma at first sip, but the second wave is decidedly sweeter. Light funk, and sour citrus notes, reasonably alcoholic. Average palate is smooth. Interesting, but does not make me want more. 7/3/7/3/13

375 @ Rudolf’s Sour Tasting with Rudolf, Jerc, Frylock & IPFreely. Lots of funk, mustiness, golden in color. Honey cuts into the sourness in a pleasent way. Has that geuze sourness but mead changes it a bit. pretty good