Rodenbach Grand Cru

Brewed by Brouwerij Rodenbach (Palm)
Style: Sour Ale
Roeselare, Belgium

Pours a deep brown with cherry hue. Aroma is strong of balsamic vinegar with a background of champagne grapes. Flavor is rich balsamic and champagne grapes. There’s a fizzy champagne-like carbonation. Tart fruit flavors emerge more as it warms. By the end, there’s a lovely tartness. This is really good.

Bottle. Reddish-brown beer with a slight haze. Aroma is slightly sharp, with hints of fruit. Taste is similar with strong suggestions of cherry and raspberry. Very tart taste. Do not taste hops but there are a lot of flavour sensations in this beer that I would be challenged to describe in words.

750 mL bottle from South Bay Drugs ($9.99). Pours a dark ruby-brown with thin layer of light tan head that quickly disappears. Tart aroma mainly of vinegar but also wood and fruit (cherry, grape, berry). Based on the nose, I expected this to be very sour but it’s well-balanced. The tart flavor is there with the acidic taste of vinegar and also sour cherry and the expected wood taste. But there’s a bit of pleasant fruity sweetness (cherry and tart raspberries) as well that is refreshing. Finish is a little tart, but not puckeringly so. Complex and good but not sure if I’ll be able to finish off this whole bottle. I’m not that familiar with sour ales, but thought this would be a good place to start, especially before the Stone Sour Fest this weekend.

Poured a well carbonated, very cloudy, almost opaque, seriously dark red/brown colour with a foamy tan head. The head was of short duration and left virtually no lacing on departure. The aroma was spicy with some fruit undertones, and I’m thinking molasses along with sour cherry. Both the aroma and taste were unlike any other beer I’ve come across. The taste was slightly sweet with a sour aftertaste, again the sour cherry. Bloody amazing is this stuff! Sour without being the "other" sour you get from a nasty beer that’s gone off. Those Belgians - how do they do it?

Bottle. Poured a medium brown body with thin head. Aroma is light fruit and earth. Flavor has a slight fruity sourness to it, earthy and berry noted throughout.

From the Bottle at Tom’s Ultimate Glasgow Tasting, Blackfriars 01/12/2007 Sour vinegar aroma. Amber red coloured and very sour with a sharp and crisp warming finish.

Cola brown with a brown head. Aroma of sourness. Little sour, oaky, fruity, dry finish. Tasty as heck. Very flavorful, palate refreshing. Has a nice sweetness that balances nicely with the sour and oak flavors. I will reccomend this to others

Bottle with Pipper at the Beer Engine. My first Flemish Red. Color was dark brown, similar to the Roch 8 like she said, but it was cleaner (no floating yeast flakes), and had less of a head on it. The smell wasn’t terribly appealing. I thought it was going to be an excessively sour ale, but I was pleasantly mistaken. Yes, it was very sour, but it was well-balanced, and very drinkable, with a full palate of grapes. Recommended.