New Belgium Biere De Mars

Brewed by New Belgium Brewing Company
Style: Bière de Garde
Fort Collins, Colorado USA

Yum! Dirty orange pour, decent off-white head. Great complex aroma, with sweet malt, fresh hay, and citrus highlights. Smooth carbonation, with a very nice malt profile that is just ever so slightly sweet, along with some citrus and intresting yeasty flavors. Very balanced and tasty throughout. I really want to be able to get this stuff all the time.

beer pours a very hazy, orangish color with a big fluffy white head that doesn’t retain so well, but leaves a lot of lace. aroma is huge, with citric notes dominant, but some subtler barnyard and grassy/hay notes underneath. flavor is very nice-a crisp maltiness with some sweetness, a light hop presence, and a nice tang from the yeast. goes down easily. a nice effort.

bottle. light orange colour with a small white head. zesty, spicy, yeasty, and subtle hops make up the aroma. moderate carbonation. flavour is somewhat spicy and peppery. very refreshing.

the orange of this beer reminds me more of mars the planet than ’mars’ the month of march-- it’s the stifling looking ruddy dust color of the mons olympus volcano we’ve seen in surface photos of planet. head is nice, though retiring; a brown-rice soft tan, but rather than lacing in an ostentacious way, it shreds like wet toilet paper. aroma is subtly musty, lots of yeast vying with the added lemon verbena, and lesser notes of golden cigarette tobacco, and of plastic diaper pail, but certainly a very clean one. i actually had 2 six packs of this over a couple week period, and while i didn’t dislike it by any means, i can’t say i ever really "got" it. it pushes in the direction of hair of the dog ruth, but doesn’t nearly reach the greatness of ruth-- and blindfolded i’d guess it was a rather dry hefe-wiezen with an unusual bitterness in the finish, like a squeeze of lime was added. has some starchy hay bale and pulpy grapefruit fibers. acidic bitterness, twangy enough to give it perhaps a medium body. one might think it would market better as a summer drink. i dunno, i didn’t really get it.

I hate round numbers, so this gets me off 1,400. Big thanks to fly for this. Pours turbid orangish with medium white head and much sticky lace. Aroma of malt, hopcit, slight vomit, barnyard, and sweaty female locker room. Tastes malty, with hopcit, earthy peaty esters, and some dusty yeast esters. Smooth finish. Very good balance and complexity. Nice style.

12 oz bottle - Central Market - Austin,Tx. Pours a murky light peach color with a thin but long lasting white head. Aroma has a bit of a lemony zest to it. Flavor is pleasant, but muddled. Has some citrus notes, with a bit of white grape in there. Some yeasty notes make their way in the back end as well. Mouthfeel is fairly thick for the style. Overall, decent, nothing to write home about.

The color of a cut open butternut squash, and cloudy. The head rises then drops and floats like a hand-knitted tam. Clingy. Smells of straw bales, and a walk through a veggie garden in July; warm vegetable leaves and tilled soil. Taste of spicy baby greens. There’s citrus, and a reminder of coriander. Apricot. Delicious muskmelon! Floats on a carbonated swell with chewy grain raft.

Very interesting beer. Citrus and yeast are the dominant scents. Yeast pads spot the surface of the biere. High effervescence but not a whole lot of body. A step away from being great. Seems almost more like a summer selection than the bridge month of its name. Finish is slight bitter and short.