Baladin Nora Sour Edition

Formerly brewed at Le Baladin
Style: Sour Ale
Piozzo, Italy

Hazy amber. 1 cm head. Looks nice. Tart, slightly peach aroma is grainy, citrusy and slightly gingery. Sweet & sour. Fairly creamy with a bready/grainy underpinning. Lemony tartness is cut by the creaminess, before it becomes bracing. Some light ginger notes.

Bottle... Hazy, golden ale with a mid-sized, frothy, white head. Lemon-pepper aroma with only a hint of acidity. Although the sweetness barely wins out, the flavor is a terrific blend of pale malt sweetness, soft hop bitterness, medium pungency and spicy, black pepper spiciness. Medium-bodied with a 2%-milk mouthfeel and tingly carbonation. Finishes tart on both sides of my tongue.

(750ml Bottle) Pours a hazy yellow body with a small white head. Aroma of sparkler smoke, fresh cut grass, caramel, floral/herbs, and half rotten apples. Flavor of floral hops, sour funkiness, and herbal tea.

courtesy of Laurent Mousson; Edition 2006 - cloudy golden-orange colour with a little persistent foam; pineapple and grapefruit, yeasty , tart and sourish; medium malt body and a lot of carbonation; the finish is very fruity and effervescent with some residual sugars

pours an offwhite ring-cloudy orange/brown color. Aroma is vinuous, medium malt. Taste is sour/vinuous, medium fruit, medium fruit, some spices/herbal. OK effervescence. Smooth.

Pours amber with some white fizz. Smells much like the standard edition but with some additional barnyard funk. Almost ice cream like mouthfeel (odd). Don;t really know what to say about this one as it tastes like a beer going through an identity crisis. Some sweet hints on the finish with more of the ice cream rye malt thing going on.

750ml bottle. Hazed/cloudy red wheat colored body with a fine-bubbled small white head. First impressions of the nose are metallic apricots (tainted cap?) and a white grape-like skin character. Texture is mildly fizzy, light to moderate acidity. Body is medium, feels somewhat uplifting and lively on the tongue. More dried, metallic apricot skins as a glass is slowly consumed. I generally don’t like any sort of metallic character in beer but I honestly dig this one, maybe it’s the dried, tart apricot and peach skin flavors. Lovely texture when it reaches room temperature. Awesome stuff.

Sampled at RBSG ’07 Grand Tasting room. Pours a hazy orange brown brew with a fizzy, fast dissolving off-white head. Aroma of spicey herbs, caramel malt, with some orange peel. Taste is lightly sour, some flowery hops and black pepper. Finish is average with a slight tart orange aftertaste. I am not sure if this is a Traditional Ale or a Flemish sour.