De Dolle Speciaal Brouwsel 20

Formerly brewed at De Dolle Brouwers
Style: Sour Ale
Diksmuide, Belgium

Provided by JCW and shared with Brodie and BelgianGirl. Cloudy orange-red body, big creamy overflowing head. Enticing, complex aroma with cherries, caramel, apple, a touch of cinnamon, and white grapes in addition to earthy hops notes. A bit sour. The flavor was no less complex than the aroma, with white grape, raspberry vinaigrette and toast mingling with sour musty earth and other assorted sweet rotting fruits. Bready. Immensely complex and satisfying with just the right amount of sourness and earth to balance the fruits and breads. I never thought I’d see this one.

(750 ml bottle) Pours a cloudy amber body with a large rocky off-white head. Sour aroma. Acidic palate. Mild tart flavor. Excellent! Thank you for sharing TChrome!

Beer pours with a massive whipped egg white head and is murky brown in color. Aroma is sour. Flavor is woody, mildly sour and yeasty. Palate is very carbonated and quite dry. This beer was an awesome experience due to its depth, complexity, and rarity. Only to glad to share it with a couple of friends.

What a special bottle of a rare beer--thanks TChrome. Musty wood, yeasty, sour aroma that is resonant with my deepest emotions and aspirations in life. Attractive appearance, with a clinging large head on a hazy amber/red body. Bouncing body, frothy. Very fruity, with lovely notes of cherry and raspberry. "Spanking" in Silktorkian terms, and a fine beer in anyone’s vocabulary.

This was real treat. The tart qualities of this beer provided a welcome change from all the big US beers sampled around it (not that there was anything wrong with those beers, I just relished the variation). Orangey copper colour. Slightly hazy. Sweet and sour - sweet and very sour, in fact - but with some fruit to provide the balance. Lots of woody notes too. Definite hints of gueuze character. Very nice indeed. Bottled at DC gathering.

Sampled at the DC/MD/VA/WV/PA Ratebeer Gathering 11/20/04. Dark cloudy amber with a light brown head. Barnyard sour aroma. Taste has notes of citric lemon, some cherry and wood. Yeasty and very tart and sour. Medium body, soft carbonation.

DC/MD/VA/WV/PA gathering. Amber and bronze, small white head. Aromas don’t get much better then this (if it’s your thing). Complex nose of musty cellar, filthy funky farm animal (if I wrote it in my notes, it’s going in the review), cherry, vinegar, lemon, caramel apple, and wood. Sour, sweet, a bit bready, but with beautiful balance throughout. Noted an additional champagne like mouthfeel that was just icing on the cake for me. Medium bodied, soft carbonation, dry woodsy sour finish. A true work of art.......

Bottle @ the VA/DC/MD gathering: Thanks to ClarkVV for bringing this one to the gathering. Thanks to the bottle for not breaking when he dropped it on the concrete outside my apartment. Hazy brownish red, tons of yeast/sediment, huge foamy white head. Aroma: yeast, sour, cherries, oranges, wood, caramel. Taste: very sour with a nice sweetness hidden in there somewhere. Tons of yeast, wood, carrot, honey, candi sugar, more sourness towards the end. Very dry all around.