Shenandoah Cherry Lambic

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

(12oz bottle) Large off-white head atop cloudy amber body. Aroma is medium sweet, spicy, some cherry. Taste is medium sweet, dusky/spicy, some cherry. Some cherry astringency, lightly tart, minimal cherry sweetness. Light-medium body, light effervescence. Strange to call an extract beer a lambic, perhaps even stranger that this wasn’t the disaster one might expect it to be with such credentials.

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.

Bottle. Courtesy of kmweaver. Thanks Ken! Blushing amber pour. Rocky off white colored head. Aroma is spicy cherries, funky yeast, berries and dust. Taste is light cherry, some tartness, funky yeast, and dusty cobwebs. Body is light but very effervescent and bubbly. Ends with more cherry and cherry tartness, light spice, funk and dust. Meh.

I got this in a trade and I think this bottle was bad. Poured a nice reddish color with a crazy fluffy head. Beer was just not right. 2 sips and down the drain it went. I am assuming this bottle was bad so I am going to rate it down the middle.

12 oz bottle, shared by kmweaver. Pours a hazy amber body with a fizzy white head. A little cherry in the nose, but still the ever present band aids like the other two. Some minimal cherry flavor and slightly sweet, this is the best of the bunch, but it isn’t saying too much. A little bit more of a lambic character to it than the others. Mouthfeel mirrored the other two I had, a little doughy with moderate fizzy carbonation. Overall, a little bit of an improvement over the strawberry and boysenberry, but still glad I didn’t have to put down a whole bottle by myself.

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.