Hanssens Mead the Gueuze

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

This beer was retired a while ago and that's a shame because it was an interesting concoction (as all meads are). A hazy honey coloured pour with the sweet aroma of honey combined with the funky gueuze aroma we all know. Surprisingly the flavour is nicely balanced and delicious.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 6

Bottle courtesy of Beerlando: Poured a golden color beer/mead with a small bubbly head with no retention or lacing. Aroma consists of sweet notes courtesy of the mead with some sour notes from the lambic with some weird funky notes. Taste is also a weird and unique mix between some sweet mead notes mix in with some sour notes form the lambic with some funky barnyard notes. Full oily texture body with some limited carbonation and no apparent alcohol. Interesting as a one-off but not something I would drink regularly.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 5 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

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).

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

(9% ABV, thanks to joergen & co). Hazy orange colour, small white head. Aroma is a mix of mead (the honey) and gueuze. Flavour is honey and sourness. Strange mix, a lovely idea, which works quite well, atleast for me.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 6

Bottled corked and had a bunch of funk around the edges. Ah, honey is one of the most self-preserving foods known to man, the geueze can't help grow much outside of its own nasty bacteria, and beer does well even if old, so I continued onward. Popping the cork: bamo, pop! Phew, positive pressure does wonders to keep infection away from the bottle contents. Again, onward, I won't get sick, eh? Poured a hazy (not cloudy) golden straw yellow color with a very generous head. Lacing was about nil, squeeky clean glassware. The aroma was an odd geueuze / mead combo: light honey, funk, rubber/plastic meadness. The flavor was grapes, bitter honey, funky barnyard, plastic/rubber funk, green apples, almost no alcohol presence. Mouthfeel was HIGHLY carbonated. Not a bad concoction, although I don't generally like meads and feel a straight geueze is much more worth my time.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 4 | Overall: 6

07.16.05 Bottle at BCTC. Straw colored and flat. Strong barnyard, some sour apple candy. Flat and sour. Lots of feet. Good and refreshing but the nose ain’t great and I’m not standing in line for more.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 8

Honey colored pour with a frothy white head. Yeasty nose with some barnyard/mildew quality.Very tart/acidic.Hints at green apples and honey.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 8

As so many other folks have mentioned previously, I should have read the reviews of this beer before undoing the cork cage. While I was deciding what glass to use for this, the cork popped out so violently straight up that it sounded like a gun-shot! So much carbonation and spewing foam that I barely got 6 oz's of beer into my glass.

Once the initial excitment wore off, it was onto the beer itself. Nice appearence, and a very nice aroma. Right from the get-go you can tell that this is a blend of gueuze and mead.

Now, I'm not a mead fan at all -- way too sweet, or way too sugary, and always way too much like champaign (case-and-point being the rocket-propelled cork with bottles like this). But I can see how a 70/30 mix of gueuze and mead would make sense -- the sweetness of the mead balancing out the sour/tartness of the gueuze. This blending makes for a fairly refreshing hybrid brew, and not letting you forget that this is definately a artisanal ale from Hanssens (who make some of the best gueuze's around, IMO).

Even with the violent cork ejection, and the resulting foam spewing, and the minimal amount I ended up being able to sample, this is a very interesting beer.
//TB

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 6

from previous notes Incredibly high carbonation. Before I could even twist off the champagne cap, the cork shot straight up like a bullet. W/ all of the carbonation, it had a surprisingly smooth taste on the tongue, no bite. The aroma was feint honey

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 8

Light gold color. Enormously large foamy white head. Aroma is barnyardish, fruity and yeasty. A blend of 70% gueuze and 30% mead. Its barnyard, horse blanket and musty funky and honey mead sweetish. There is a very complex interplay of flavors going on here. Tart and sour mixes with sweet and fruity throughout the beer. Its nearly warfare in your mouth and become harder and harder to describe the interplay. Champagne like carbonation. Watch the cork, both bottles I opened didn’t quite explode the cork but it took off thataway rather quickly. Hides the 7.9% alcohol very well. An interesting beer, not for everyone, but light and refreshing none the less. Mouthfeel is full and round. Finish is clean and crisp. Aftertaste is slightly bitter