New Belgium Le Terroir

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

Another wow from New Belgium. Acidic, sour aroma, some slight fruitiness. I was told it was a sour white or golden ale, but it poured a nice pink color. Great sour flavor, some raspberry, sour cherry, citrus, vinegar. Very enjoyable.

Had this on draught at Falling Rock in Denver. The aroma was vividly sour and outrageous! The aroma was heavily hoppy with notes of herbs (bay and rosemary), resin/pine and grapefruit and packed with heavy miscellaneous notes of balsamic vinegar, peach, sour cherry and white pepper. But, unfortunately, the herbal character imparted by the dry hopping combines with the balsamic vinegar and creates a very vivid dill pickle smell. The flavor was lightly sweet and almost harshly acidic with a long, moderately acidic, lightly bitter finish. There was a neat hoppy-cedar retronasal aroma, too. The body was light-to-medium, the texture was watery and the carbonation was soft.

(GABF2005, so kind of hard to judge with only a 1 ounze sampling) This was presented to me as a lambic, but now I see it is a sour ale. Nose is very sour in a nice way, and it has absolutely no head. It didn’t have det lambic earthyness - which isn’t surprising since it obvious isn’t a labic. But all in all a very good beer.

Descent murky orangish pour. Nose is very sour, quite citrusy as one might expect if you’ve had a new belgium brew. Flavor is quite sour, but toned down from the la folie. notes of cherry with a nice oak hint to it. Quite enjoyable.

Orange beer, small just off-white head. Beautifully C-hopped, and only light lactic and acetic hints in the nose. Great, perfectly fresh hops taste, on top of beautiful lactic acidity. Fresh pipe tobacco smoke, and again hops (fresh) in the swallowing, grapefruit-like. Dry-out effect, dry, dry, dry. Absolutely great combination - the perfect marriage between bitter and sour. Super! Notes for the Brettanomyces refermented Le Terroir Orange-amber beer; nearly no head, transparant. Soft straw-like, soft-hoppy nose, with lots of fusels and higher alcohols. Lemon-like sourness, extremely remarkably clear but falling away rapidly, hops flavour/ aroma without the bitterness. Flowery background flavours. Sharp, burning MF, more acid than alcohollike, of cours. Sharper, more phenolic than the usual dry-hopped Terroir, but nice all the same; yet the Bretts and the dry-hopping seem uneasy bedfellows.

FoBAB. Hazy orage, gold color. Sour, citrus aroma, huge lemon notes. Very sour. Flavor is oak, citrus, and champagne vinegar. Intense.

Lightly vegetal, somewhat sour aroma evokes pickles. Some notes of cider vinegar and an almost smokey character. Clear copper coloured body with a low white head that recedes slowly to ring. Assertive, sour grapefruit, apricot fruity flavours with some herbal hop character. Medium light body is very dry with lively carbonation. It is deinitely interesting but I’m not sure how much of this I’d want to drink. Bottle sampled at DenverLogan’s pre-GABF party 2005.

Sampled at the Festival of Wood and Barrel Aged Beers in Chicago.

Hazy orange, small head. Smells and tastes somewhat like vinegar and barbecue sauce. Some apple notes, very tart. Some lemon and citrus. Something’s not right. Unusual, if you are looking for that. I had a sample from the same keg as a lot of others at the fest and cannot figure out for the life of me why they rated it so high. This is just plain weird rather than good. My rating is even a little generous.