Cuvée De Ranke

Brewed by Brouwerij De Ranke
Style: Sour Ale
Dottignies/Dottenijs, Belgium

Hazy dark golden color. Modest wispy white head. Sweet sour scent with hints of malt, aged hard cheese and mild barnyard. Sweet start with some oak, leather and citrus joining in. Seems a bit lifeless and week. Expected more. Will rerate at some point, not sure what the occasion will be.

Amber with pink hues, a large but thin white head, mainly of bubbles. Nose is very lambic like with acidic sour and fruit, but the musty note is larger here, very earthy and damp. Flavor is conflicted, as if the mix never came together fully: sweet fruits taste syrupy while acidic gueze qualities seem too bitter. Palate is full, but the insufficient carbonation doesn’t hold it up, leaving it a little sluggish. This problem is alleviated slightly by warmth. All in all, this is a really good beer, but even though it comes from a dominant Girardin base, the mixing seems evident.

Pours amber into a snifter. No head whatsoever. Sour aromas. Tart and oaky from front to back. Lasting bitter finish.

Aroma reminds me of some sour candies from my childhood that I can’t quite put my finger on. Tart with light funkiness and what seems like some tannin backbone.

Bottle. Caramel colored beer with a whitish head. Oaky, musty, tart aroma. Tart flavor with oak and some woodsiness. Medium body. Lingering tart, wood, and oak. Lacking a bit of complexity and sourness.

Bottle via bottleworks.

This has to be one of the more under-rated sours on the site. Stunning beer.

Hazy amber pour, nice white head. Relatively flat mouthfeel but not a detriment as such. Powerful aroma, musty and moldy, very sour, lots of oak.. But the flavor is so smooth and....accessible. Amply buttery nuttiness atop a sour-but-not-so-sour base, tons of musty oak, chewy leather. Splendiforous!

Bottle. Aroma of slightly cheesy funk, wood, some cherry, cardboard. Flavor is oddly bittersweet. Some tart and citric qualities with apple and citrus. Nice woody sourness too, but not enough with the odd flavors. Rather light bodied. Didn’t work very well for me.

Bottle, BSF at the GBBF. Hazy honey, a few off-white bubbles. Fresh dry-summer-morning dandelion aroma. Spicy, wooly; simple and stunning. Dry peppery mineral flavor, light and profoundly refreshing. Didn’t actually intend to try this beer, and ended up with a glassful when my attempt to offer Ang a glass was generously misinterpreted as a request for a sample. Well, what a fine mistake that turned out to be. As much as this may not even turn out to be my highest rate of the GBBF, this was definitely the most memorable, and the one that my mouth waters for whenever I recall it. Such a beautiful beer.