Lost Abbey Veritas 004

Brewed by Port Brewing/Lost Abbey
Style: Sour Ale
San Marcos, California USA

Huge thanks to pepsican, badbeer, and iowaherkeye. Similar to Isabelle Proximus but less citrus & earthy malt. Quite sweaty. Really intense flavors, but finish is strangely watery, yet still with bile harshness-the only downside of it. Straightforward.

Lemon yellow pour with a small white head. Aroma is just a massive amount of lemon, funk, grapefruit, bubblegum, and oranges. Flavor is lemons, bubblegum, hay, oak, and lime. Clean and very sour finish. Yum!

Bottle for JW77 and Ralflord (BA name). Pours cloudy gold w/ 1 finger head. Plenty of lacing..........Excellent aroma of lemons, funk, and peaches. Little hint of tropical fruit too......The flavor follows suit....very tart with some lemon, peaches and faint tropical fruits.......lively/spritzy mouthfeel w/ flavors that hang for a while.....incredible sour from one of my favorite breweries.

Bottle courtesy of a super generous BA poured into a tulip. Thank goodness the cage on this one held up as the cork was doing it damnedest to get out. As soon as I loosened the cage, the cork nearly put a hole in the ceiling. The foam come pouring out fairly slowly though, so definitely not a gusher. In fact, the head settled in at about two inches and white with the pour. The body is a super bright hazy golden orange underneath the cap that sticks around for the duration and leaves good lacing. The aroma is extremely enticing with tart lemons and plenty of brett funk as well. As it warms, tart cherries start to come out and the wood character is pretty evident. Overall, you just know it’s going to be sour judging from the nose. The taste caused me to pucker quite a bit with a vinegar and tart lemon and peach presence up front that gave way to the bready malts in the middle and a dry tart cherry finish. The brett is present throughout and the funk seems to build between each sip. The mouthfeel is fantastic with lively carbonation that complements the dryness of the finish and the brett perfectly. I’m still getting my palate around sours and this is certainly one of the best I’ve ever tasted. The brett funk is perfectly balanced by the underlying fruity tartness and makes it very drinkable. I’m not sure if I’d enjoy any more if the brett became more pronounced. As it stands right now, I love it.

Bottle: The aroma consists of sour cherry, lemon, mustiness, and wood. It pours a hazy dull golden orange with a small white head. The flavor starts with lemon with a hint of sour apple. There’s some faint cherry in the background. The finish is moderately acidic and has some mustiness and faint wood.

Pinch me, I am dreaming. Two Lost Abbey beers in a row?! On the same day?! I must have done something right in my life recently to be so lucky. That and I know a wonderful group of fellow beer geeks who are as generous with sharing their beers as they are with their educated opinions.

Like déjà-vu, another golden haze of minimally dreggy delight settles into my glass. Soft streaks of a softer, whiter hay peaks out every now and then while a ringlet of thick foam lazes around under my watchful eye. Immediately an onslaught of piercing sour tartness kidnaps my nose, taking no prisoners and asking for no ransom. Tart, sour, acidic funk as far as I can smell with dusty stacks of hay, dry, worn-out leather, barnyard essence, and a dry summers breeze melds perfectly with the eye-watering sour acidity and tart funk. Personally, if there were a heaven this is what it would smell like and the fountains would be burbling with oak-aged Veritas, not water. Surrendering completely to a will not my own, I tip my glass back for the first of many mouth-puckering quaffs. Bam! My tastebuds are tingling and screaming in sour delight as each acidic wave of Veritas poaches and cleanses my palate just in time for another. Crunchy, unripe peach skins, nectarine, and plums are brisk while dusty hay, leather, and barnyard funk and wood offers solid support. Clean, delicious, and decisive, the Lost Abbey Veritas Ale aged in oak-barrels is a mind-blowing cacophony of exquisite balance and satiating flavors. Just when I think she is done, a large, crunchy, sugar-coated lemon drop lands squarely on top of my tongue, melting and mingling amidst my final sips.

Sometimes it is hard to pick a winner when one savors over 20 amazing beers during a tasting, but I can say with absolute confidence that the oak-aged Veritas Ale is in the top 3, if not my favorite out of the tasting. I have an incurable sour-tooth, and she was the perfect cure for my disease. Now, I just have to wait for another Veritas, or an equally puckering sibling.

Bottle 75cl. @ [ Chris O’s pre NYE Tasting ].
Unclear hazy medium yellow orange color with a average, frothy, good lacing, mostly lasting, white to off-white head. Aroma is grapefruit, citrus, barnyard, rubber. Flavor is heavy acidic, vinegar and sour with a long duration. Body is light to medium, texture is watery, carbonation is soft. We have this after having Russian River Temptation, Lost Abbey Isabelle Proximus and Girardin Gueuze Black Label, and I must say the Girardin beat the American breweries, they are all nice sour but they still have a long way to go to match the real thing ;o)) [20081230]

Courtesy hopscotch. Hazy straw color with a thin broken head. Fantastic aroma, barnyard funk, grains, slight acetic sharpness on the nose. The acidity is slightly more bracing on the taste, pulls back to let in more of the woody barnyard notes, slight citric sweetness on the finish. Fantastic.