Bios Vlaamse Bourgogne

Brewed by Brouwerij Van Steenberge
Style: Sour Ale
Ertvelde, Belgium

Ruby red colour with a off white head. Some sour notes in the aroma. Sour up front with some sweetness finishing it off. Good fruity taste/

Good sour red, middle of road for style. A style that I have come to love in the past few years. This could maybe use a bit more body but still good. Monk’s cafe bottle.

Bottle into Hop Leaf snifter, Hop Leaf (Chicago). Nice solid flemish sour with all the trappings. Pours a dark red with not much tan-ish fizzy head. Acidity nicely apparent on the nose. As the beer warms, the smell gets more lactic and funky, almost like sawdust soaked in bad wine (not a good development). Taste is crisp with a quick burst of sour (like any good flemish sour, and somewhat like a gueuze). The flavor settles into a light fruit taste, like Granny Smith apples; doesn’t have the roundness of fruit character like Rodenbach beers. The finish is somewhat dry, smooth, and somewhat yeasty. Not as vinegary as the Duchess, but just as sour and less sweet (more tutored). Very nice sour beer.

Wow, I am shocked, this, to me, is as good as the top rated Flanders Reds. Small bottle of Monks Flemish poured into a wine glass. Pours dark red and light brown, very murky beer with lots of sediment and a small head. Aroma is strong, strong, strong acidic sour with fruitiness that is a mix of raspberries and strawberries. wet wood/ moldy basement, and even light spearmint. Some lightly cocoa biscuit maltiness. Taste starts of mild enough with oak but leads to a strawberry speckled mouth-puckering sourness. Leaves the mouth so dry. A medium body with medium carbonation. Also, seems to me like a bargain, picked it up for 3 bucks, much cheaper than a La Folie and just a bit better priced than even a Rodenbach Grand Cru.9/4/8//4/17

Well, another shocker, had it again and it scored much worse. The only difference is I bought this bottle in NY as opposed to Boston. Taste is a bit vinegar strong and very candy-syrup sticky sweet. Nowhere near as sour and almost a totally different beer.8/3/7/3/16.

light brown maroon sour wet light must floral citrus berry aroma medium lively body accentuated by the sourness. tart and light bitterness and roast malt, cherry lemon acidity and fairly sweaty, balanced and refreshing

A strong pure aroma of alcohol and yeast. Has a light smell of wet cardboard but still smells good. Color is a medium brown and is paired with a stubborn topping of cream foam. The flavor is intensly sour and shocked my taste buds into a coma but i eventually got used to it. Some hints of wild yeast and sweet caramel grained malt also apparent.

Pours a deep dark ruby color with thin off white head. Aroma of cherry, cranberry, barnyard, must. Taste is cherry, cranberry, barnyard, light metallic taste and mild malt. Almost like New Glarus Enigma.

poured a little darker than i was expecting. red plum opacity with some dirty brown head. extremely carbonated, but not heady. in fact, carbonation died quickly too to normal levels. smelled from far. up close, it’s a very obvious super sweet winey aroma. like a dark fruit taffy candy syrup or something. a bit sour, but more sweet than sour, saccharine almost. smells like if i spilled this on my desk it’d be sticky for months. very refreshing at first but without tons of flavor. then some sweetness kicks in, then some off-taste vinegar and metal. not that vinegar is an off taste in a flemish sour. certainly isn’t as good as the other flemish sours i’ve had, but i could probably drink a half dozen of these on a summer evening if need be. a little too carbonated and not very complex either, but i’m pretty happy with it. does taste pretty medicinal.