Lost Abbey Avant Garde Ale

Brewed by Port Brewing/Lost Abbey
Style: Bière de Garde
San Marcos, California USA

Aroma is full of sweet fruit, notably figs, peach, and some spices. It’s appearance is a orange color with a white head. The flavor is complex, delivering sweet fruit, alchohol, and vinuous flavor. It’s full of raisins or figs, some apple, and some sugar. It’s a smooth drink, that lulls you to sleep, with each intoxicating sip. It’s a potion not a beer.

750ml Bottle: Aroma is very sweet and fruity. Smells of grapes, fruit, peach, cardboard, and spices. Poured orange in color with a small, off-white head that diminished but lasted throughout. Cloudy. Opaque. Flavor is very sweet. Tastes of fruit, malts, caramel, candi sugar, hops, Medium to full body. Viscous, then chalky texture. Soft carbonation. Hoppy, dry finish.

750 ml corked bottle. Smells like the inside of my Gramma’s cupboard. Lots of yeast and bread flavor with some spice. A little fruit comes through. Mellow bread taste really develops nicely as it warms.

750 ml bottle, wispy head, smells of aspirin and grapejuice, very cheesy flavor like a light bleu, great body to this with a wine like finish

bottle. Heavy deep orange color, pretty large bubbly white head with a lot of sticking power and lacing. Smells of a light yeasty tartness and some grainy, musty malts. Flavors of light spicy hoppiness, some sweet candy sugar, boozy fruity phenols, and some sharp yeast notes. Good balance of flavors, if not entirely within the norm for the style. Very crisp, clean, and even palate.

In short: A fruity Bière de Garde. Highly drinkable.
How: Bottle, 750ml, about 8 months old
The look: Cloudy light golden body with a very small white head
In long: Somewhat sweet with crisp honey, very bready, some orange peels. Quite a bit of fruity yeast esters with pineapples, mangos and apricots. A bit dusty. Nose and taste lack the farmhouse character of the good French Biere de Garde and there are a bit more fruity yeast flavours than usual but everything else feels very much French Bière de Garde. Highly drinkable. To me this to me is a mostly typical Bière de Garde but with a light nice Abbey Tripel twist. A very good beer that doesn’t stays mostly within the boundaries of the style, if all Avant-Garde would be that groundbreaking and innovative Home Alone would be considered experimental cinema.

Sampled at the Lost Abbey beer pairing dinner with Tomme Arthur event at Chandler Whole Foods. Pours a glowing gold with minimal white head. Nose is a touch sour at first with yeasty bread, grassy/earthy tones, some citrus and Belgian spices. Palate is malt, bread, a bit of spice and a mellow hop finish. Medium mouth feel. Went well with its goat cheese pairing. Decent, refreshing brew – you can tell why this is a base for a lot of Lost Abbey’s mixed creations – not real complex.

Sampled @ the Tomme Arthur Beer Master’s Dinner in Phoenix. Nice neutral session brew that isn’t aggressive...14 karat with a small off-white head. Nose is a bit grassy/citrusy. Flavor has spicy undertones along with more prominent flavors of buttermilk biscuits and Granny Smith.