Chapeau Banana

Brewed by Brouwerij De Troch
Style: Lambic - Fruit
Ternat-Wambeek, Belgium

I opened this and it immediately made me think of a slushy machine. There is this guy at work who brings in slushy machines on hot days, and his banana flavoured slushies smell just like this. Maybe he adds Chappeau Banana to it. A slight red tinge to a generic yellow pour. Bubbly head, even though the description says no head. An up close smell has a lot more then just that ’banana flavouring scent" I swear it smells of plastic and old glue. Uber thick and sweet! Oh my gods. It’s like when we were in university and used to sneak the syrup containers out of the soda fountains. Tastes more like something from Willy Wonka then a real beer. Reading the ingredients this makes sense as they read: Beer, Bananas, Sugar and Flavour. So I’m not even rating a beer, I’m rating some messed up concoction that contains ’beer’. Beer should never list beer as an ingredient. I do have to admit this is about %356 better then Chappeau Exotic (sp).

Bottled. Poured a crystal-clear brighter golden with faint whispers of white head and a very loose ring. The aroma picked up huge doses of sweet bananas and cream.. reminded me of a banana milkshake that I just loved when I was a kid.. so points for that! The flavor had the super-sweet bananas as well, but lost some lustre.. some cream and mild oak accent, and this thing was just powerfully sweet... there was an odd, sticky sweetness right at the finish that was not so enjoyable. Lighter-bodied and sweeeeet!.. decent banana presence in here.. and an interesting brew.. but I would probably not drink another.

250ml Bottle. Pours a deep gold colour with a very small head. The aroma of bananna is so overpowering that I could not smell much else. The taste can be characterized as a very, very sweet bananna, which is not surprising since the third ingreedient is sugar. There is no weight to the palate at all....like drinking fruit juice. A horrid product.

25 cL bottle. Pours slight hazy yellow with a lacing white head. Aroma is sticky sweet banana - even from a meters distance, it did reveal some lambic notes once my nose had adjusted to the banana aroma. Slight lambic sour note in the start and finish and with a sweet banana flavour in the middle. No bad as such - but I honestly will never return to this.

Golden in colour, lingering white coloured head, some light lacing, lightly visible carbonation. The aroma is of lots of banana candies, very lightly sour. The flavour is very sweet, no tartness or sourness, lots of candy bananas, no lambic qualities. Sweet mouthfeel, light body, medium/high carbonation. Finishes very sweet, lingering, lots of bananas and dry. This is no lambic, incredibly sweet.

250ml bottle from the LCBO in Peterborough, Ontario for $2.25.
Purchased on July 10, 2007 and opened on July 14, 2007.
Best before March 22, 2009.

Bottled. Yellowish golden colour, not much head. Artificial bananas with sweetish sourness all the way through, both in aroma and flavour. Don’t ever try to have any kind of cheese with this one...

[Sampled at BeerBikers 40 years birthday.] Had this cultbeer as a present for the losers final. Indeed they were chocked, which also were the purpose. Banana, bubblegum and marchmellow-banana.
A TRUE WINNER!!!

This is one helluva’n interesting (beer). The pour is the color of a Golden Delicious apple, hazy and dulled. A thin white ring of bubbles forms and rapidly diminishes. The body appears thick and tumultuous. The aroma is of banana in many interesting incarnations: banana creme pie, banana peels, overripe inner flesh(gooey, turning into sugars), banana pudding, the possibilities for dessert pairings seems endless. Also noted in the aroma are a light lambic tartness and very mild barnyard funk, hay notes, seared wheat, unrefined sugars, maple syrup, honey and undefined nuts. The flavor is solely focused on the banana, though that’s odd since the overall intensity of the banana flavor is not even half of what it was in the aroma. Sweetness is high, bitterness nil, acidity very low. The syrup and honey notes build with each sip. The finish is cloying but remains drinkable, light lambic notes surrendering to the banana syrup proliferation, acidic imbued nectar unsuccessfully wrestling for position. The mouthfeel is lightly carbonated, sticky, syrupy and thick. Sugary, check; overly sweet, check; odd and not remotely like a traditional lambic, check. Why the decent score? This is obviously not intended to be revered and is definitely a product for whimsical fun, for the masses. If I were to rate this based solely on its merits as a fruit lambic it would surely suffer the consequences of its distance in quality and consistency from the traditional aspects of the style. I rate this beer, however, as I do all beers - an interlude about what qualities are enjoyable or loathsome, or anywhere in between. This is a fun and quaffable fruit beer and nothing more, and I’m okay with that. Enjoyable despite rampant flaws.