Dogfish Head Festina Lente

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

Bottle shared by a kind soul at BCTC ’07. I had to ask him for some of this (which I felt kind of weird about) but I really wanted to try it. Thanks a lot, mystery bro! Poured a light peach golden with a little white lace. Nose is sour and funky, almost gueuze-like at times, with a mild peach aroma if you search for it. Flavor is incredibly sour with a more assertive peach flavor, folllowed my more funky malts, and an incredibly dry finish. This is delicious. From what I can tell, this has improved tremendously with a little age.

2004 bottle. Poured a clear, translucent golden with only a thin loose ring for head. Aroma was of sweet and sour peach skins with some vinegar acidity.. sourness bit hardest. Flavor was also of very sour peach skins with a touch of nutmeg spicing.. very driven toward mouth-puckering sourness. Remarkably sour on the palate with little sweetness coming through.. lengthy finish, but not a good thing in this case.

2004 vintage bottle shared by Jason Capriotti. The beer pours to a thin hazy flat straw colored body with no head. The aroma is heavily peaches and Turkish apricots. Very fruity. The flavor is very tart. Mouth puckering sour peaches and Turkish apricots. One of the sourest US beers. Freaking tart!

2004 bottle at Spuyten. Yellow-orange with no head. Major sour aroma with peaches thrown in. The taste was also extremely sour, with a bit of citrusy and peachy tang. The real drawback here was a bit of a salty flavor that lingered after tasting. Nonetheless, this managed to be the most sour beer at Spuyten’s lambic fest. A pretty nice treat and has obviously gotten better with age.

2004 bottle at Spuytin Duyvil, quite a small sample. Cheesy, old, slightly tart aroma, with a touch of peach. Much more tart in the flavor, pleasantly so, with good peach and funk notes. Quite watery. Though this has aged well and soured up decently, the lack of body was quite disturbing.

750 ml 2004 bottle shared with willblake and dickinsonbeer. Poured an orangey/yellow with lots of haziness and no head at all. Aroma was fatastic with lots of fresh peaches and some sour funk. Flavor didn’t live up to the aroma but only had a faint hint of the lovely peaches that the aroma had and even then it was just at the very end. Very sour but would of liked to see just a little more of the peaches in the flavor.

Strong tart peach aroma, no malt, no hops. Flavor was salty, peachy and sour. The lack of complexity and saltiness really affected the drinkability of this beer. Perhaps it was past its prime.

Bottle shared at the Columbus Tasting V: Yellow pour wuth a white head. Aroma was quite sour with faint notes of peach skin. The flavor was straight sour which pretty much overpowered everything except for some very faint fruit notes. Fairly light body, super sour all the way through the long finish. I really kinda liked it, especially when compared to most other DFH crazy experiment beer...I was expecting something overtly sweet, but this was something different and quite nice.