Brasseurs Biere de Garde

Brewed by Brouwerij Huyghe
Style: Bière de Garde
Melle, Belgium

Someshat tart and sour nose with some off notes. Grassy hop notes and a touch of Diacetyl and Urine. Barnyard notes lead into an earhy almost moldy not. Toasted malt and cookies come thru on the palate with a touch of banana and mango. Finishes acid and sour with some residual spice.

Pours orange amber with light whitish head. Nose has a fruity yeastyness. Flavor is spicy with hint of chocolate, caramel and toffee. Underlying grassyness. Creamy through the middle with an almost tart dry finish.

1984? Amber body with a big, frothy, off-white head, especially for a 20 year old beer. Several large goodies in suspension. Big nose of cork, apple cider and yeast. A bit of light caramel and a bit light fruit. The body is creamy and smooth, with the carbonation substantial considering the age. The flavor is much better, and not nearly as tainted by the aroma. Not overly sweet, but certainly malty. Good, but probably past its prime.

750 mL - corked & caged (rusted and brittle), 1984 vintage: light pop with the cork removal is very promising indeed and the pours is even better: generous ivory froth of bubbles atop a red-golden body that contains suspended yeast and other goodies. Sweet, corky aroma that shows its age with a slight musty quality and doughy yeast. Flavour is sweet and malty with dark honey and a bit of melon. Flavour turns a bit sour with some iron and chalk. The palate was amazingly nice – good carbonation level after so long. A beer that held up remarkable well, and was interesting, if not amazing.

Quite an interesting brew, pouring a clear amber color with a tall off-white head and some rather intense (but soft) carbonation. This has a funky barnyard aroma of hay and grasses and wood. Add to that the scents of caramel, dried dark fruits, smoke, toffee, and wet wool. The taste is quite malty with white pepper, clove, and a yeasty fruitiness. The finish is fairly dry with a hint of toffee and apple. Quite a complex and tasty drink.

Amber colored beer with a big explosif head that lasted untill I had finished it. The odour was somewhat farmish. Beer with caramel, wood, raisin aromas. The aftertaste was too yeasty for me...

Bottle. Deep amber colored with a decent head of foam that lasted a couple of minutes, leaving a bit of residual head that draped lace all down the glass as I drank. A few solidified yeast floaters made the appearence a "iffy," but that comes with the old and cellared Belgian territory. Nose was insatntly of pungent vinegar, yeast, must and sweaty horse. There's a stable smell to it that reminds me of the barn when i used to crawl up in the hayloft. Complex flavors--caramel, malt, clove, nutmeg, apple cider, and overall a yeast presence. Finish is medium dry and tannic. Really nice!

750 ml bottle, a dusty 1984 model with a dry, slightly moldy cork and a label that was peeling off, the glue having dried up. My oldest beer sample! We (MartinT, Rastacouere, Simon_Patrice and I) opened the bottle, half-fearing it to have lost all carbonation, or to simply have worn itself out. But there was a resounding "pop", and immediately a powerful aroma, initially of strong tannic wine, emerged. Success! A huge gout of foam slowly crept up the side of the bottle, so I poured. A light rosy orange, with little head -- again, looking very much like wine. The aroma from the snifter was extremely complex: caramel, barnyard aromas, seville orange bitterness. Very little acid on the tongue; lovely well-blended farmy flavors, the yeasty swirl at the bottom really adding body and character. Pepper present throught; this is a fairly strong example of the style I think. Dryish finish. A superb biere de garde, probably past its prime, but oh how prime it must once have been!