0.75 l bottle. Hazy deep golden color with thick fluffy head. Tart, fruity, spicy and yeasty aroma with honey, clove, coriander, orange and lemon. The flavor is sweetish with tart fruits, oily and bitter yeastiness, coriander, clove, orange, lemon and some alcohol. Lots of yeast in the bottle. Good beer but not like Dupont at its best.

750ml bottle (Porvoo Harvest/Dark Beer Festival 2007) very light for a ambree, light orange, lively thick head. smells like breakfast cereal, sweet, corny and milky. excessicely lively in the mouth. both sweet and vert resiny bitter. a bit unbalanced. after shaking the bubbles out, the maltiness joins the sweetness and the hoppiness and improves the taste.

750mL bottle, Best Before 04/2007 drunk on 6/26/07
By this point, I’m just going to skip describing the perfect appearance we have all come to know and love from Dupont. Suffice to say it’s a polished tan-beige leather body with beige head.
For a darker saison, or whatever this is, I’m very impressed by the lack of oxidized malts or any overly nutty/bready maltiness. The nose barely lets on to the dark color with a fresh yeastiness that reminds me of something like Foret, though with a bit more brown sugar and vanilla here. Light apple esters and plentiful fruitiness, though not overdone. What’s most impressive is the leafy, green, almost American? hoppiness that still pervades the beer. That has most likely contributed to its preservation. Man, this stuff must have been a hop bomb when fresh. Big, bold aroma, beautiful yeast, and strong malting. Yep, it’s a Dupont.
Somewhat of a greasy texture, perhaps hop oils? but it’s quite bailed out by the ample, tight carbonation, leading to touches of creaminess. Toffee and chewy graham cracker notes are no where near overbearing and allow the characterful yeast and light hoppiness room to maneuver. Unique, for sure, and I’m less inclined to believe that this is a minor tweaking of one of their other beers. But then, I’ve only had the dark moinette once and that was a fresh bottle too. Still, the hop profile is vastly different than anything else from Dupont (and from most Belgian saisons, for that matter). Sweet, not surprisingly, given the choice of malts, but not too sweet. Probably one to drink after 1 year instead of 3.

Hazy golden color; huge creamy head. Dry malty aroma, lightly floreal. Good body strength and balance, traces of malt and some residual sweetness, but mostly dry, with a strong ending bitterness and a late light apple touch. Very pleasant.