Hanssens Mead the Gueuze

Formerly brewed at Hanssens Artisanaal
Style: Mead
Dworp, Belgium

[bottle] Opened with a violent force of pressure.. leaving some dusty brown mold around the rim of the bottle. Funky, musty brett aroma is quickly apparent from a distance. Hazy gold in color, with a coarse bubbly head. Flavors are full leather and brett, with some floral honey undertones. Somewhat understated honey character. Overall a unique beer-- very interesting.

12.7oz bottle purchased at Sputyen Dyuvil Market. Pours orange with a big 1 finger puffy white head. The nose is guezzy with something else, perhaps some honey mead. The taste is sweet sticky, funky and yummy. Pretty tasty.

Hmm, well this is different. First off, I fell in love with the nose, with a nice farmhouse funk rounded out by a very well defined sweet honey aroma that tended floral. The flavor took a u-turn however, with a milder presence of funk and an unusual pickled olive flavor to go with it. Slightly cheesy, like a good blue cheese. Very dry, with a moderately hard acidity: sour but it won’t hurt. Golden orange color with quite a bit of effervescence foaming up in the glass before settling down again quickly. Surprisingly, the palate was not very carbonated, and it sat a bit thick and still on the tongue. Moderately refreshing, too bad it wasn’t hotter today.

Bottle. Hazy orange and deep gold with a small head. Aromas are floral, nutty and spicy with yeast, banana and cheese. Flavours are sweet malts with pepper and citrus. Vinegar and barnyard cheesiness soon comes through along with bitter citrus and floral notes. A good strange brew.

Hmm, what a strange concoction...the sour, vinegary scent reminds me of haroset (haroseth), a Passover specialty consisting of nuts, fruit, spices and sweet wine. You’re supposed to mix it with horseradish, and this actually has notes of that in it. The barnyard and dark fruit notes don’t really blend that well as others have noted, and it’s quite acidic and bitter. A bit like ApriHop, but more sour. Each sip is a little different, which keeps things interesting, but the flavour itself is just wrong.

Pours golden with 5 cm of white head. Nose has some wheaty sour Brett with layers of sweetness. Soft carbonation for a gueuze. I fail to taste any mead qualities in this. Mostly some sour citrus, wood, and light rose petal in the finish. Lacking in honey. A decent gueuze; no where near a mead.

Very beautiful honey golden clear body with a huge beautiful white head; As soon as you put you nose to this thing you discover what a stupid idea is it puring a simple mead into something as beautiful as a Geuze, the otherwise beautiful aromas of the Geuze are covered and destroyed but fat dusty honey aromas; Soft carbonation on to soft honeyed body, more bitter and harsh then sour; Long soft finish, full of VERY unfitting flowery honey aromas. What a waste of both Geuze and honey.

Bottle at Rich O’s Publick House during RBSG Road Trip 2007. Big bubbly white head dissipates in seconds, cloudy orange/gold body. Wow, what a nose! Funky sour brett over sweet honey. Lots of carbonation over a light body. The mead honey sweetness centers itself on the tongue, then the gueuze blows it away with a dry, tart sourness. Champagne texture and flavors dominate the sides of the tongue, as it finishes dry and bubbly crisp. Wow! Loved this, but clearly not for everyone.