Rodenbach Alexander

Formerly brewed at Brouwerij Rodenbach (Palm)
Style: Sour Ale
Roeselare, Belgium

Amber reddish colour with a large beige head. Tart fruity aroma with notes of yeast and wood and hints of cherries and marzipan. Malty flavor with cherry and marzipan sweetness. Yeasty and light dry finish.

Deep red amber; good yellowish head, leaving some lace. End of the bottle pours solid hazy. Great Grand Cru nose with both lactic and acetic - AND a touch of fruit extract sweetness, even after all these years. Very good sour-sweet balance in the taste: here the age has done well, even when the MF still betrays the syrupy slickness. Bit of lemony flavour, grapefruit and blood oranges. Very tittilating beer, spritzy and sticky at the same time. I used to hate this beer - the best way of ruining a great Grand Cru. Then again, I expected age to be beneficial to this, and it was. All faults have not been gommed, but now I could drink it - which is a relief from Redbl*dybach

Bottled. Reddish brown coloured. Natural cherry aroma with oaky notes. Sweet and acidic flavour. Complex. Smooth. Nice.

Pours red and muddy with a generous tannish head. Smells vinegary with some tartness and barnyard qualities. From the first sip to the finish, there is an underlying sourness only matched in the greatest ecamples of this style. Some nice woody qualities are also quite pronounced. The oak aging did this one well.

Distinguished cherries herald a wooden sourness…A poem or two later, they hail a caramelly sorbet with vanilla coulis…Awe-inspiring, sweet and acidic class…

Bottle shared by pilsnerpeter via goldtwins. I never thought I’d get a chance to try this, so I was pretty grateful when Pete brought it over. Deep amber-red beer with a thick sticky pink-tan head. Aroma is just great. Rich vineous oaky richness. Lots of bright cherry over a light balsamic/acetic nose. Fruity and sweet with a lovely earthy/cherry/stone fruit aroma. Rich and fruity flavour with a crisp tartness and a light woody sweetness. A touch of vanilla and soft tannic character. Rich lingering finish with alternating waves of acetic and lactic tartness. Sublime.

1994 Vintage
Consumed at Heeren van Lindekerke in June 2006 (12 years cellared)
Clear medium-dark ruby and burgundy colored body. Nose consists of smooth creamy cherries, slightly sweet candy-like scent. Flavor is crisp, lightly sour, has a good frothyness, somewhat peppy as well. Light sharpness in the nose, syrupy cherry fruit and red grapes (wine) flavors, sum this one up fairly well. Perhaps my bottle was a little oxidized, because I found some alcohol or acetone scents. Has soda-like carbonation. I tried pretty hard to find something remarkable in this one, but I did not find it. Overall it’s good, but I did not feel it was worthy of the 100th percentile. As a footnote: I truly love flemish sours.
Photograph of Bottle & Glass:
http://www.youforgotpoland.org/beer/RodenbachA /> 8/4/7/3/15 = 3.7

1996/7(?) Vintage
Bottle shared by ryan, consumed June 2008 (11-12 years cellared)

Pours clear dark rusty brown in color, leaving a huge cement yeast cake on the bottom of the bottle. Pungent, acidic, big and thick on the palate, sticky bread crust and vinegar and brown sugar everywhere. Extremely deep and complex, but the richness and huge body is the real draw here. Thick, sharp, acidic, wine-like at times, vinegar-like other times... excellent stuff. Much better than the 1994 bottle I had in 2006.
8/4/9/5/17 = 4.3

Bottled @ le Circus (1998 vintage): Burgundy coloured. Has a small but lasting brownish head. Is light sour cherryaroma. The fruitsweetness really suits the sourness. The flavour is similar. The sourness is perfectly matched by a sweet and fruity cherryflavour. Really nice. Has a to die for aftertaste of fresh and citric fruits. Lives for quite a long time on the palate. Had to pay 8€ for this 0,25l bottle, but it was worth every penny.