River Horse Belgian Freeze Winter Ale

Brewed by River Horse Brewing Company
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Lambertville, New Jersey USA

2004 bottle. Light brown with a foamy tan head. Aromas are light cola and sweet candy. Mouthfeel almost explodes in your mouth with all light flavors of yeast and cani sugars. Similar to the aroma this is a weak ass attempt at a Belgian style ale. NJ sucks.

Thanks for the bottle argo0. Luminous ruby-brown body with some fine yeast and a soapy, grayish tan head. Aroma of sweet plums, cherries, chocolate, dark caramel, and a phenolic note of burnt rubber. Flavor has qualities of Vietnamese preserved plum soda and cherry syrup. Medium-high sweetness, some cleansing medium tartness, and low bitterness. Mouthfeel is both juicy and chalky but passable. Not bad and better than expected after a less than stellar visit to the Porterhouse brewpub.

12 oz bottle: Hazy mohogany brown w/ a lasting light beige head. Lightly floral plum aroma along with a burnt coffee. A hint of spicyness from the yeast. Light whiffs of chocolate malt, and freshly crushed pale malt. Well balanced but a bit bitter and burnt tasting. Not overwhelming, but stronger than I’d like it to be. A bit tart up front, with some plum fruitiness into the semi dry finish. Malt flavor is almost not existant, but ends up a slightly bit toasty. Aftertaste is herbal hop with some grainy bitterness. Higher carbonation is a bit prickly, lighter medium body, and a dry m/f. Overall, not a bad beer, but not a great attempt at a Belgian strong.

Bottle. Brown color, slight haze, and very litle head. Yeasty aroma, with spice. Flavor is really bad. Grainy and earthy, bad mix of malts, and finish leaves a bad smoky taste in my mouth. I can’t believe that this beer has that much alcohol. Tastes like they wanted to brew a Belgian ale with 3% ABV. The yeast is there in the aroma, but not in the flavor. Avoid this beer.

Pours brown with no head. Smells of dark fruits and bubble gum. It is a little hoppy, carbonated and then turns unexpectantly malty. Tastes a little like peat moss with a little smoke thrown in. It was smooth but sure was strange to try.

I’m not sure if this is supposed to be good. Because, if that’s the case, there was some sort of SNAFU somewhere in the River Horse chain of command.

Sorry about that folks, this is my third rating of the night and I’m getting downright ornery. Can’t help it. On to the rating.

This pours a decent enough hazy brown color. The nose is where this goes wrong--kind of an odd roasty note w/ a bit of sulphurous strangeness. Flavor follows w/ some more weird roasted character, some tartness and an unusual fruity note. There’s just something wrong here and I’m not sure what.

Pours dark brown with a minimal head that disspates quickly. Aroma is sweet and floral, and is a bit estery. Flavor is of burnt toast - smokey yet cloyingly sweet and the same time. Weird sourness in the finish. Thin mouth feel, too light bodied for the style for me.

Pours a brown mahogany with a small off white head that went away quickly. Light aroma of fruits, malt and light belgian spices. Flavor is darker fruits, caramel and some brown sugar.