Dogfish Head Festina Lente

Formerly brewed at Dogfish Head Brewery
Style: Lambic - Fruit
Milton, Delaware USA

Bottled ’04 Februmergency Tasting. Hazy clear medium yellow body with a small white head. Funky Belgian aroma that is quite tart. Fruity, extremely sour, but a very clean sourness. Dry finish. The peach is hard to find through the powerful sourness.

Bottle at the Febmergency tasting. 2004. Pours light yellow with white head. The aroma is honey, white wine, some oak, tree fruits, and lactic sourness. The flavor is dry and vinous. White raisin, oak, and a nice musty sourness, with an occasional moldy note (which I’m actually enjoying). Stern tartness throughout makes it quite refreshing. The peach is very subtle, largely masked by the sourness, but is present enough to add a satisfying complexity. This is quite good.

Bottle at decaturstevo’s Februmergency Tasting for those of us that missed out on Sexual Chocolate ’09 thanks to springslicker due to lithy’s request. 2004 bottle pours lightly hazed amber with almost no ring of white head. Over the top sour peach flavor and aroma. I KNOW this is good for a lambic, but my palate has not matured enough to truly appreciate yet. But this is truly good.

750ml corked and caged. I’ve had for a while, I got a ways back via trade. Decided to pull it out as I couldn’t really figure out what to drink tonight, I thought why not crack this old bottle. Cellar Temp, Bottled in 04, Pours orange with a bright white head that fades some. As soon as I popped the cork the peaches were there for me. Peaches in the nose are mellowed. Taste is woah, damn tart and vinegary. Puckering the inside of my cheeks. Gotta say I like this a lot, a neo lambic indeed but still damn damn damn sour and smoother than I’d have guessed. Damn DFH, screw Festina Peche, bring this beer back.

750ml bottle. This, is extreme lambic. Pours a nice ruby color with heavy fruit aromas. The taste is super sour, too sour to sip. The taste is difficult to figure out behind all the tart sourness. The finish does mellow out a little to enjoy some peach flavor.

2004(?) Vintage Rating #1400 Happy Sweetest Day to my wife!

10/18/2008: Dogfish Head Festina Lente has a soft aroma of sugary, fuzzy peaches with a dry, subtle oakiness. Its color is "sun-kissed peach" (my wife’s term) and there is no foam on the surface. At first it seems to be still, but holding it up to the light reveals a nice, clear liquid and a low level of very fine carbonation bubbles. This beer is "tart, light, crisp, and tasty" according to my wife. It is indeed very tart with a pleasing acidic edge and flirts with crossing into the sour realm. There is only a very, very slight hint of peach hidden in the tart and sour flavor of this beer. It really comes across more like a tart and sour white wine only much better than that! There is also a delicate floral fruit and honey characteristic in the middle. Additional fuzzy peach, oak, and a trace of lactobacillus come through as the beer warms. This beer is mostly still on the palate and has a light to medium-light body. Overall I am impressed with this beer and really enjoy its tart sourness. It is definitely holding up to time and has a subtle depth that is difficult to describe. Very refreshing. My wife also enjoyed this beer, but puts it just behind the Lindemans Pêche Lambic since she would have liked some additional residual sweetness...

1 pint 9.6 oz corked and caged bottle (7% ABV) from hopdog via trade in August 2007. Thanks Steve! Served cool in red wine glasses as recommended on the label. Rating #202 for this beer...

Bottle. Pours a golden body. Dry peach oak abv musky and sourness. A bit of woodiness and sour peach acidity. A good bottle with plenty of time on it.

"Really Old Beers and Really Stinky Cheeses" tasting session at ACBF 2008. From the 2004(03?) bottling. This was a truly unique experience. If you tried this beer when it was first released and get another chance to have a bottle, don’t let that original experience color your opinion. Apparently when it was originally bottled, it took this beer over a year and a half to bottle condition because of the acidity which is why lots of the early ratings are so low. When I had it it had a nice touch of peach with nearly perfectly-balanced sour character. A real treat.