La Bavaisienne Ambrée

Brewed by Brasserie Theillier
Style: Bière de Garde
Bavay, France

A powdery body of rust orange hue. Dynamic nose. A heavy stink of horseblanket and farmhouse hay. Brown spices. Green apples with cinnamon and sugar. Sweetness warms into French toast and syrup. Taste lacks a similar evolution. Feels dirty and dry. Earth, wet leaves, and a hint of dark honey. Band-aid and cardboard. Dry licks of clove and ground anise toward the finish, where a subtle maple sweetness slowly blossoms. The barrel casts an imposing shadow, but this provides little nuance beyond the wet wood. Yeast lends a generally musty disposition and is thick enough to be somewhat unsettling. Full and rich texture. Certainly unique. Thanks Andy!

Pours a relatively clear amber with a big off white head. Smells of malts, caramel, a little candy sugar, and some spice. The taste is a little the same. Pretty malty, almost syrupy, good dose of some cinnamon and caramel. A little bit sour and funky, finishes smooth with some of that biere de garde flavor too it. Definitely an intriguing and complex brew. I can see why its rated so highly.

25 oz bottle, Stateline Liquors. Pours a dark gold body under a one finger fizzy foamy white head. Tons of chunkie floaties churning about. The aroma is very funky and dry, classic for the style from what I’ve had. Light wheat and hay with a undertone of slightly fruity and doughy malt. The flavor is equally funky with lots of yeast influence. Finishes with notes of grassiness, yeast, alcohol, and a touch of pepper. Mouthfeel is light to medium bodied with lots of fizzy prickly carbonation. Overall, this was pretty good, and an especially good example of the style to me. The chunkies were a little excessive, but better than being totally filtered like some BdG’s.

Pours a beautiful amber body and a tall creamy white head. The aroma and flavor bring sweet caramel malts… a hint of rustic yeastiness, a wet bale of hay or straw, candy sugars, rich moist nutrient rich compost dirt, chestnuts, black pepper corns, and a soft hint of clove. The palate is silky with it’s velvety carbonation… A very well made beer, but a tad too sweet for my palate.

Bottle from boboski, thanks jerk. Rating # 1000! The aroma is a blend of grass and caramel malt. Golden body with a huge off-white head. Medium palate. The taste is quite complex. I find aspects of malt, grass, yeast, chocolate? and some light spices (pepper). More malty than I expected, but easy to drink. Much better as it warmed up.

(750 ml bottle via trade with <A HREF=http://www.ratebeer.com/ViewUser.asp?UserID=2 target=blank>CaptainCougar, thanks Tom!) Pours cloudy light amber with a big, frothy, rocky off-white head that sticks around for awhile. Aroma of bread dough, vanilla, yeast and spice. Mouthfeel smooth, light but fairly full. Globby, foamy bits of lacing. Flavor is light malty, bready, yeasty with light pepperiness in finish. Quite nice but gets even better as it warms/and or deeper into bottle. Butterscotch merges with the light pepper and swirls around with the bread dough, yeast and vanilla. Light peppery aftertaste. Quite enjoyable. This unique style is really growing on me even after just two!

Cloudy golden brown, huge head rocky random head with great lacing and retention. Aroma is yeast, caramel, lesser notes of fruit and grassy hops. Very soft smooth mouthfeel, light sweetness. The only BDG so far that made me sit back and go ’whoa.’

I am very surprised to see this beer so highly rated, as my experience with this beer was not all that positive. I this beer had a handsome appearance but was otherwise pretty boring. The beer was an attractive red color with cumulus cloud head composed of consistently-sized tiny bubbles. However, I detected no aroma at all. Flavor-wise, I got some malty sweetness balanced with more hops than I expected (the one real redeeming feature of this beer). Still, I ddin’t feel there was much flavor here. Throw on a rather watery mouthfeel, and I am not much impressed.