All About Beer Magazine

Beer Talk

Palm Speciale

Published July 2008, Volume 29, Number 3

• John Hansell

  The “mainstream” Belgian beers are more expressive than the mass-produced beers here in the U.S., and Palm is a good example. Golden amber color. Light in body, but not thin, with bready, toasty, caramel malt notes married with stone fruit and citrus. Soft finish. Nicely balanced and very drinkable. A beer to buy when you’re hosting a party and you need one beer to keep a wide variety of beer drinkers content.

• Stephen Beaumont

  Oddly enough, even though I’ve visited Belgium often over the last decade, I’ve never before sampled this ale from the bottle. (It is, or used to be, available in fine cask-conditioned form at the Horta Café in Antwerp.) It has a fresh, hoppy aroma, mixing notes of tobacco and dried leaf with appley fruitiness and a hint of orange zest. The body seems a bit sweeter than the nose might indicate, though, with fruity, faintly sugary malt not quite balanced by a rising hop bitterness, although the dry, slightly tannic finish shows its hop pedigree well. All in all, a commendable session beer, Belgian style.