Moeder Lambik Blond
De Struise Brouwers

33cl Brown bottle, it was supposed to be poured slowly into a 'Duvel' glass, but the beer gushed out onto the table before I could pick up the glass, so very lively stuff!

This of course allowed all the sediment to rise up too, and enter my glass, none was visible, but the beer had a hazy look to it.

Colour was light amber/old gold, on top a huge foaming snow white head.

The smell was yeasty and very 'Belgian', semi-sour citrus aromas mixed in with sweet peas?

The flavours appeared a little subdued to me, crisp and refreshing, but lacking interest and bite. It was also a bit 'fizzy', best before date was 05-2011, so it wasn't a baby when I opened it. In fact it has sat, boxed, in my garage for over a year before being brought out into the light and cooled for this tasting.

Slighty disappointing to be honest, maybe I'm missing the point here, but de Struise have such a good following and respected name, this however doesn't live up to the billing!

Marked as "KB No. 3 Blond Brew" on the beer label, this 330ml bottle-conditioned beer is brewed and bottled by the Struise Brouwers for the "Moeder Lambik", supposedly a bar or a brand name? BB 05/2011, served chilled in Hapkin's tulip-shaped bowl sniffer.

A: the beer bursts out of the bottle and lands in the glass a murky dark amber hue with lively carbonation and a creamy white frothy head, leaving layers of lacing behind.
S: astringent citric, pineapple-ish, and overripe-melon-ish fruit upfront are backed by a decent layer of semi-sweet pale malts (pilsmalt) with an edge of citric-zesty as well as floral hops and boiled-green-bean-like estery notes in the background. Clean, focused, fruity, very well-integrated for a Belgian blond ale.
T: an effervescent mouthful of floral-yeasty, chalky, and faintly sour-citric flavour precedes a brilliantly lingering aftertaste full of hop characters, showing tangy dried citrus zests and finishing with a faintly spicy, mineral, and lightly tea-stem-like tannic bitterness. Yeasty bitterness also lingers, due to the sediments poured into the glass, while malts run at the second, even third, layer throughout the drink, as a quiet but essential backbone.
M&D: initially slightly too fizzy, as the beer is presumably still quite young after bottling, but this ensures a refreshing palate to carry through the relatively moderate flavour profile sip by sip. Hoppy, bitter, as well as yeasty (but not as so by the normal standard of a Belgian Blond/e) - this light-bodied, non-demanding blond bier truly is quaffable, and at this freshness and temperature it should pair with light fish dish just perfectly!