Bière Darbyste

Brewed by Brasserie de Blaugies
Style: Traditional Ale
Dour-Blaugies, Belgium

A Mes rate: 37.5cl bottle from somewhere that will remain nameless. Damn I wish this place could look after their bottles properly. Exploded out of the bottle and flew right to the other side of the room and on into the kitchen. Grrrrrr. As a result I am left with half a bottle of oozing foam and a beer that is, I get the impression, a little flatter than it should be. Still not bad it is. Nose of yeast and sourdough with some peach and apple. Looks are great. One of those that looks like it means business. Almost has the consistency of freshly squeezed orange juice. Thick and opaque orange brown body and a head that lasts reasonably well even with the beer handling problems mentioned above. Flavour is yeasty and sour again but now the apples have given way to oranges. Rather tart it is too. Finish is odd. Dry and with more of the sourdough detected in the nose. Strange but a reasonable beer. Oh and thankfully there is nothing overly figgy about it, which is good, I hate figs...

Bottle (Utobeer): Strange aroma of darker fruits, citrus and rotting grapes. Suprising citric lambic-like flavour, with a nice fruity background. Mildly tart in the finish. Nice darker gold colour with a white head.

(750ml bottle) Sampled at Stella’s Tapas Bar in Vancouver on June 19, 2006. The first good beer of the day! Yeasty, vanilla, lemon and orange nose. Flavour of lasting citrus and yeasty spices. Smooth and thoroughly Belgian. Lip-smacking goodness!

Hazy dark gold with a thin white head. Acidic coriander in aroma, with herbal qualities, and lemon. In mouth, menthol, like orange juice after cleaning teeth, coriander, sharp. Medium bodied. Mondial 2006.

Expected something fruity, sweet, and thick. It looked ok - golden, cloudy, with a littleof whitehead, but wasvery sour and thin. Not sure what the figs added to the brew.

Cloudy golden body with a medium beige head. Body is full but soft with a cotton candy mouthfeel. Malt profile is dry hay and wheat. Yeast is moderately wild. Shy hops essence flavour. Felt like those lambics dry-hoping but with this type of beer it was just too blah. Dandelions is the best word I can find to describe the hops flavour. A bit perfumy. Add to that a lemon muffin flavour with a bite of peach on the side and some herbal spices. Light tartness/astringency. My least favourite of the Blaugies lineup. It’s kind of… you know… there. You can feel the potential greatness of other Blaugies but this is obviously meant as there entry beer and they played it as safe as a politician’s acceptance speech.

Bottle. Pours an orangish color. Could be a clear beer, but there’s a ton of sediment in my pour. White thin head that sticks around. Aroma is dark fruits and some phenols. High acidity in the this one, with some hints of dark fruit. Definitely some phenolic character as well. Overall, highly disappointing. If there’s figs in this, you wouldn’t know. The high acidity and phenolic character dominate the beer rather than add to the complexity. Not something I’d recommend.

Light orange body with a large head. Nose is yeasty with some tropical fruit, fig and herbs. Balanced and subtle in flavour, with green apple, flowers and citrus. Soft carbonation with some pepper and herbs in the finish. I could drink this beer all day.