Southampton Biere de Garde (French Country Christmas Ale)

Brewed by Southampton Publick House
Style: Bière de Garde
Southampton, New York USA

Bright amber body. White creamy head. Malty vegetable aroma with a stale grainy taste. Some decent sweet corn... vegetable malt. Good, but uninteresting and stale-like.

Translucent, fiery orange. Aroma is honey biscuits and rain over a recently mowed field of grass. Light, crisp, bready sweetness on the palate joined with caramel hints. Medium hop bitterness which stands in the background so that other flavors, including grass, lemons and herb interject dominance in its complexion. Light, but sustentative on the palate. Thanks to JCapriotti for sharing!

Pours to an amber color with a thick fizzy white head that has excellent lacing. The aroma has a ton of toffee aroma, lactic sugars, and butter. The flavor is similar to the aroma but has subtle hints of chocolate. The palate is good.

2005 Bottle: Beatifully appearing beer with a lively copper color and a totally retained, creamy off white colored head. Aroma is full of lots of toffee like a Heath bar. Flavor is some toffee, butterscotch, underneath these more predominant flavor are some saison like flavors yeast and a very spicy, black pepper flavor. A promising beer that seems to be a bit flawed. I can see this being a big winner if the butter flavor is brought under control.

05.07.05 750ml bottle at Heavyweight open house. Hazed amber, big tan head. Butter. Butterscotch. Cloyingly sweet aromas and flavors with lots of oxidation. Pretty lame. Especially sampled next to Biere d’Art, this brew is a weak example of the style. I can only eek out cooked apple, butter, jam, butter. No thanks. I normally wouldn’t pan a beer that seems to have been affected by age, but this is biere de garde. It should get better, right?

Really impressive stuff. This was my first go at this style. Beautiful amber appearance with a creamy white head. Aroma was fruity and had Hay in it as well along with butterscotch. The butterscotch was wonderful in the taste and the aroma. Toffee and bicuit were present as well. I must try more of this style. This really drew me into it.

Hazy copper with a thick tan head. Aroma of fruits, nuts, and yeasy spiciness. I also detected a pretty strong butterscotch aroma. Flavor is spicy and woody, with toasted malts. The butterscotch from the aroma unfortunately follows into the flavor. Nice palate, gets better as it warms.

Pours a hazy amber with yeast sediment and a medium white head that leaves nice lacing on the glass. Interesting aroma and flavor of fruits, hay and farmhouse terroir, it is slightly sour too. Light to medium body, creamy texture, soft carbonation. This is a very good Bière de garde. Markowsky knows his farmhouse stuff.