Day #200! – Bourgogne des Flandres

Holy crap it’s day 200!!!  I never imagined I would make it to this point, and it seriously does not feel like it’s been that long at all.  I have had so much fun doing this, and want to thank everyone for the continued support in reading my blog.  To date I have received over 10,000 views and that’s amazing!   Thanks guys.

Bourgogne des Flandres

Bourgogne des Flandres is a Belgian beer from Timmermans.  They are based out of Itterbeek, Belgium and are known for making other quality fruit beers.  This one how ever is classified as a Sour Ale/Wild Ale.  They have said to have aged it in oak barrels to improve the flavor and also to give it a touch of sourness.

This beer is gorgeous. There’s no other way of describing it. It almost looks like a glass of wine; effective with the glass it is served in. The appearance is a deep ruby red color. Gently swirling the beer reveals sticky legs that run down the edge of the glass. It has a very light ring of white carbonation but otherwise is lacking. Not surprising and accurate to the style. The light is hitting my glass just right that it is projecting a lovely ruby dot onto the bartop. It’s pretty cool!

Aroma is lots of dark fruit. I can smell sour cherries, plum and light grape. There is a light tartness to this as well; acidic and belies it’s true style.

The flavor however is not as sour as one might expect. It has a gentle tartness with some sweeter notes of dark fruit and malts. As this beer warms it develops an interesting flavor of maple syrup. I like this, but honestly would not drink more than one at a time.

Cheers to the next 100!

Day #137 – Alvinne Cuvée Freddy Batch 2

Headed to a beer tasting tonight and I honestly have NO IDEA what I am going to review. Typically when I have a beer tasting to go to I will plan ahead and have an additional review saved from the night previous, as it’s a pretty lousy idea to drink BEFORE you go to a big tasting. This will be interesting, but I will try to choose something that is available locally. Usually someone will bring something locally but the majority of the time we try beers from all over the world. If worse comes to worse then I’ll just pick something incredible that was taken out tonight. Alright here we go!

Alvinne Cuvée Freddy Batch 2

OK now here’s the deal. The tasting was a small group tonight; basically me and 2 other dudes. You need to understand that most of the people in this tasting group get things to bring in the mail or through trades. There are only a few things available locally that we haven’t yet tried and only a few guys regularly bring locals….and none of them were there tonight. So I’m just going to make the best of the situation and review something the I will probably NEVER see again but was by far the best beer of the night. AND it’s a style that I don’t have much of. So I do apologize that I am breaking from protocol and reviewing something not available here and probably never will be.

Alvinne is a fairly large brewery from Belgium but they do not distribute to the United States from what I understand. This beer in particular is classified as a Sour Ale and comes in at 9%ABV. The word Cuvee literally means “blend” so we can expect this to be a blend of 2 different things. The description lists it as a sour ale that was aged for 8 months inside of an oak barrel with their signature Morpheus yeast being used.

Dark brown pour that turns red in the light. Has a bubbly edge.

Aroma is cherry sweet with a sharp oaky sourness. Not offensive but soothing.

Flavor is tart on the edges on the tongue with a cherry sweetness that finishes into a gentle oak. So I’ll go on record as saying I don’t much care for sours but I love this. Well done.

Cheers!

Day #40 – Freetail Ate’

This is the first sour ale I’ve reviewed and it is from Freetail Brewing Company out of San Antonio, TX. This is the first time I’ve seen it and as of now it is only available at the pub.

Freetail Ate’

This beer is classified as a sour ale. Sour ales are fermented with a wild strain of yeast, usually giving it a mouth puckering flavor. This is one of those.

Tap at the pub. Pours a fairly clear golden color with very little head.  Aroma is sour fruit with a slight touch of vinegar. Lots of sour notes here.

Flavor is quite tart an puckering sour. Some fruity flavor with a tingle left on the palate. After the initial shock of sour it starts to ease up a bit.

Different from several other sours I’ve had.