Delhaize Perfect Match NA Stoofschotel

Pale greyish white, mousy and stable, very tightly and intricately 'Brugse kant'-like lacing head, lightly hazy mahogany robe with coppery hue. Rather weird and hardly inviting aroma of wet brown paper, cotton, cold vegetable soup in an artificial form (Cup-a-Soup, even quite strongly so), natural rubber, popcorn, light caramel, iron, brown soap, stewed spinach, very vague beef stock somewhere in the background. Sweetish onset - yet strangely a tad less so than in the NA Rood Vlees version - with a sourish undertone, in a very dull way (sourish graininess), quite lively carbonation but not overly so, minerals, slick and rather glueish and soapy mouthfeel, thicker than usual for a beer of almost no alcohol content; some thinned out 'caramelly brownness' but the popcorn- and empty grain-like effects prevail along with a clear metallic 'zing', leading to a finish where the green vegetable element and that vague background whiff of beef stock show up, almost like green Cup-a-Soup in the end, accompanied with a lot of rubberiness and a late hint of leafy hop bitterness, which seems more 'embedded' into the whole than is the case in the NA Rood Vlees version I had prior to this one.