Duvel Belgian Golden Ale 8%Abv

Pours the colour of light golden sand. Delightfully delicate fresh aroma, bananas, cloves, caramel, honey. Very reminiscent of wheat beers.

It starts gently and unassuming on the taste buds, light sweetness, hints of bittering, then wham! What follows is an hammer blow to every taste bud in the mouth, a hundred different flavour notes at once that smash and echo into the distance, like dropped tray of glasses in a restaurant.

This punctuation of taste, a big yeast crunch, squeezing out fruit flavours, maybe grapefruit. Spicy notes, cinnamon, cloves, definitely pepper, which lingers on long into the finish, where it is joined by the hops. The hops, arrive on the scene like a band who’s support act have played the gig of their life. They are delicate, but not understated, leaving a pronounced bitterness lingering like the pianos being struck at the end of The Beatles “Day in the life”.

Each sip of this beer is like watching a car crash again and again, you try and piece together what’s happened, but even super slow motion can’t help you disassemble a Duvel.

9/10 An outstanding beer. The only possible way to understand this beer fully...is to have another one.