I don’t know whether Brouwerij De Troch‘s fruit lambics are any more "authentic" than Lindemans, but I picked up a bottle of their Chapeau Banana Lambic when we did our last trip to John’s Marketplace earlier in the year simply because it intrigued me.

Apparently they have an extensive line of these fruit lambics, some of which are of the usual variety (apricot, cherry, raspberry) while other are decidedly not-your-everyday-beer-fruits: pineapple, lemon, plum. They all seem to be in the neighborhood of 3.5% alcohol by volume (like this banana).

It’s unusual, but I rather liked it, as it turned out.

Appearance: Pale yellow-orange—golden, almost—bubbly. White head was fizzy but didn’t last long.

Smell: Delicate notes of sweet banana, slightly clovey. There’s a musty, horsey tang of Brett yeast… very delicate.

Taste: Tart green apple thing going on with sweet, very ripe bananas playing the background. Crisp. Pretty tasty. I want to say "Jolly Rancher" but not in the annoying way that Lindemans Pomme is. Nice interplay of sweet and tart.

Mouthfeel: Light, but a tad puckery, leaves a bit of a cloying aftertaste behind, but very drinkable.

Overall: Yum! Unusual but I like it.

On BeerAdvocate, it scores a grade of C+. On RateBeer, it scores 2.3 out of 5, and is in their 12th percentile.