New Belgium Bottleworks 10th Anniversary Wild Ale

Brewed by New Belgium Brewing Company
Style: Sour Ale
Fort Collins, Colorado USA

Sample from 750mL bottle at Lost Abbey. Wow. What an excellent beer. I’m really enjoying this new generation of 6%ish sours. By far my favorite beer of the nights. Fairly high lactic sourness, Huge fluffy head, which was suprizingly wonderful, though I think this beer would be excellent flat. Yellow color. Not so much like La Folie,, except for the fact that it they are both sour and excellent. More along the lines of Deviation, Veritas 004, etc.

on 7/20/09 i says i say: dark, spiced pumpkin color with off-white head. Sour apricot nose with waves of suede, fresh herbs, and powdered sugar. Sour but soft fruity maltiness, clean and smooth, with a subtle yet intriguing plasticy nature. Extremely subtle yet enticing this one is, very much dig this. fo sho. 9.5.9.5.17 AND....2 months later, my second rating forgetting that I’ve already rated it: Cloudy Orange, full sheet of head. Nicely acidic, fruity nose with apricot and lemon. Tart and fruity, and super clean sour flavors bursting with lemon, nectarine, & Apricot. Super Clean, perfected sourness, breathtaking acidity. Masterpiece 9.5.9.5.18

CPLYFO 09. Bottle shared by Fogdog! Pours an orangey- peach haze with a nice thin lasting white head- film. Aroma is funky- brett, pedio, and acetobacter- tons of fruity sourness, mostly peach and some light sour cherry notes, and a nice herbal almost citrus hop note, but toned down to let the sour and fruitiness come through. Hops come through a bit more in the flavor especially in the middle and come out about even against the sour notes. Peachy, tangy, sour, lactic, malic acid in the end, prickly hop sand prickly acidity work well together here better than any other sour beer. I loved this stuff. Tasted like a perfect blend of a good batch of erics sour peach and a really good batch of La Terrior. Thanks FogDog.

Still reddish brown. Red wine vinegar, exotic yet stable. Still in the glass, ruby brown. Fruit forward, some wood, biting and grabs on in the end. It’s less bracing and complex than the la folie in a more approachable way. Pie cherry, damp hay and love. 080909 Lovely funky grassy footy lemony dry aroma. Heavenly. Oh hell yes. Tart cherry, lemon, wood softened beauty. Hibiscus. Seriously. I went back for more without shame, how much better can this beer get?

22oz bottle courtesy of Fogdog. This is a hell of a beer. In fact this was one of my favorites of the throwdown and that says a hell of a lot given the lineup. Pours a rusted orange with a foamy white head. Nose is very winelike with some dark berry and grape aromas and of course huge acidity and tartness with alot of heavy wood in the nose. The taste is so damn tasty. I wish I knew what they blended for this, my money is that the eric’s sour peach ale is a part of this cause there is a pronounced sour peach and apple finish. Up front is sour cherry and tons of woody brett. Funky and quite sour but not oppressively so. This was blended to perfection. Awesome beer.

The 20th lucky bastard to rate this. Thank you Jon, the Jon Jon Jon, Padrefan, yo. Pours orange with a tan ring. Nose is super amazing tart nose. The nose is awesome. Awesome. Taste is tart with citrus and vinegar, this is great this is great!

Hazy pale amber with a small white head. Aroma of funk, fruit and brett. Tart and fruity flavour, with some tannin, a little almond, and oak-ish coconut.

Sampled June 2009
A solid, though not aggressive, pour into my large Tripel Karmeliet Tulip produces an almost four-finger thick, nicely tan colored head. The head slowly subsides with a rocky texture and leaves a nice lacing pattern on the sides of my glass. The beer is a burnished, dark amber, red tinged color that shows a hazy’ish, light cranberry red hue when held up to the light. Even as I pour this I get a nice scent of Brettanomyces funk that is quite inviting. Big lactic sourness mixes with sharp notes of urea, musk and phenolic soaked musty cotton. The aroma is actually quite Gueuze like, and I don’t mean just any Gueuze, but a good, solidly funky example whose aroma will keep my quite happily occupied for quite some time. A background of spicy oak, a woody mushroom wildness as well as some freshly crushed grain aromatics, a nice grassy / dried hay component are also quite prominent if you spend some time exploring the nuances. I like how funky this is, it really has a vibrant character to it; a fine mix of butyric acid and urea type notes provide a strong, musky note that any Lambic lover should crave.

Bracingly tart, which I was ready for based on the nose, this beer makes my mouth pucker up quite nicely. The beer is fairly light bodied, and if not for the aggressive lactic sourness, this would be as quaffable as water. While the sourness is nice and hard, it is not too much for this lover of hard-Lambics. The body is also not thin as it has a tannic structure from the oak as well as certain slickness from the lactic acid that provides just enough body. This is well carbonated underneath the acidity, which contributes an amply prickly sensation as well as boosting the peppery finish. While the beer has a fair amount of color to it, it doesn’t have much to it that reminds me of the more malty Flemish Sours. In fact the flavor once again reinforces the Lambic / Gueuze qualities that I noticed in the nose. A touch of dried grass, and freshly crushed grain husk flavors can be found in the finish at times, but overall the fresh malt contribution is quite subtle here. There is perhaps a touch of acetic acidity here, but it is very soft (especially considering I was expecting much more from the New Belgium Barrels), this is really much more lactic in character and is a big departure from the bottles of La Folie that I have had over the years. Again, the acid balance is nicely in line with a Gueuze, but there is just enough acetic character to provide a round fruitiness to the beer that can just remind one of a wine-vinegar.

Enough focus on the acidity, there is also a ton of funkiness to this brew. Notes of urea are found throughout the flavor profile and there is a huge, musky, dried sweat soaked leather, a woody & phenolic mushroom character, . There is also a substantial tannic note here that even coats the teeth a bit, it is wrapped up in a solid oak character that plays a supporting role in this beer. The oak provides a soft spicy note, and a solid wood-chip flavor. With all the acidity the beer comes off as tasting bone dry. At times I find myself noticing a nice fruitiness in the middle of this beer, especially as it warms up; it is wrapped up in the vinegar notes and provides a touch of cherry, some sour plum and even a touch of something that reminds me of a dry, rosé Champagne as well as evoking a suggestion of fruity sweetness. The warmer this becomes, the more the fruitiness gets accented.

I am quite impressed how close this beer is to a Lambic. In fact, when this beer is in the low to mid 50ºF / low 10ºC this is the closest I have ever had to a Lambic outside of Belgium, and I am really digging this beer. Warmth does bring out a touch more acetic character and fruitiness, but nothing necessarily outside the range of a Lambic. This really is just a fantastic beer, one which I definitely wish I had quite a bit more of in the cellar. I am really enjoying the ample Brettanomyces presence and how it pairs with the solid sourness. In the end this is a very tasty beer that achieves an incredible balance between the various components of it’s flavors and aromas.