Shenandoah Cherry Lambic

Brewed by Shenandoah Brewing Company
Style: Lambic - Fruit
Alexandria, Virginia USA

12oz bottle acquired in trade with kmweaver (thanks!). Poured a medium and lightly hazy amber color with a smaller sized off white head. Aromas of cherries and yeast. Tastes of lighter cherries and some bready pie crust. Lightly sweet with a light tart and dry finish.

Poured a lightly hazy amber color with a medium sized, off white head that left light lacing on the glass. Aroma of some medicinal cherry, and grainy malt. Taste was cherries, sweet, with a tartness in the finish, light toasty malt, and the mouthfeel was regular.

Thanks to hopdog pours a lightly hazy golden amber with a smaller bubbly off white head. Aroma of tart cherries, floral notes, Belgian yeast spiciness, Flavor of tripel like yeast esters, bread, cherry skins, floral notes...nice spicy/fruity mix.

12 oz. brown, longneck bottle. From brewery. 2007 batch. Poured out a weak cherry juice color, with a huge cream colored head. Once I stirred it with a spoon, most of the extra carbonation came out of it. Aromas are of cherry pie, crust and all. Some yeast in the background. Nothing in the way of hops in aromas or flavors. Flavors are of sweet malts, mixed with cherry pie tartness. Decent beer overall, but no lambic by any stretch. Finished sweet & tart at the same time.

12oz bottle, purchased from the brewery. I know, I understand, I get it, this is hardly an authentic lambic, but it succeeds in ways aside from this: it’s essentially a fruit beer, and it would likely get more love from future raters if it were labeled a fruit beer. But that’s how we roll. This is really the first beer I’ve had in a while that reminds me of Iron Hill’s Cherry Tart, which I absolutely adored. A beautiful pour: hazy, pinkish-ruby red in the glass with a very lightly pink head: just amazing, glistening lacing that holds tight to the side of the glass and glistens like crazy on the way down. Just nice. Sweet cherry juice and a touch of vanilla in the aroma: not exceedingly sweet, and it certainly doesn’t have the density of something like Belgian Red, but just pleasant and generous and lovely. The mouthfeel isn’t entirely seamless with the aroma and look: a bit of dustiness at the front soon disappears, leaving a soft doughiness and light cherry juice at the core, actually quite reminiscent of the maraschino cherries I ate way too much of whenever my mom was baking cookies; nothing sticky or oppressive, just a generous fruit beer with a nice doughy core that seems to appear in most of the Shenandoah beers I’ve tried. A bit of doughiness and lightly toasty dust in the finish, with plenty of cherry juice. Some people will knock this for not being an authentic lambic, as I figured I would, but it really succeeds as a general fruit beer. I could drink way too much of this.