St. Sylvestre Bière Nouvelle

Brewed by St. Sylvestre
Style: Bière de Garde
St. Sylvestre-Cappel, France

Golden colored, massive light-tan rocky head that is long lasting. Very bubbly: bubbles stream from the center long after the pour. Excellent aroma: malty, cobwebs, thick gingerbread, fruitcake. Mmmm mmm. Flavor is amazingly complex, again with ripened fruit, mildly roasted malt, oak. A certain underlying sweet, airy, almost coppery feel. Silky with good carbonation balance. Aftertaste turns slightly sour, but that is the only flaw that I could detect. This stuff is truly phenomenal by my book.

Hazy deep orange body with a lovely sticky white head and moderate lace. An almost champagne like aroma with hints of mustiness and anise(?). Wonderfully full bodied, much in the manner of a fine Belgian Trappist Ale. Very peppery, malty and a slight warm alcohol feel on the back of the throat. Amazing.

The first thing you know about this ale, once freeing the cork and letting the beer flow free, is the enormous, volcanic, titanic, utterly brobdignagian head of foam that gushes forth and overwhelms the glass, spills unto the floor, and before you know it, you’re licking the linoleum! Aroma: Sweetness supreme! I’m sorry, if you’re not an angel in human form, you probably have no right to know this sublimity...oh, wait, it’s YOU! Okay, go ahead...sparkly, yeasty, fruity, heady, ..oooh, I’m on cloud 10! It’s one more, you understand... Appearance: a murky, cloudy, amber hue, closer to a pale orange, actually... Taste: lightness, sweetness, fruit, divinity, transendence, uplifting goodness, unparalleled happiness resulting from, goodness, this is that rare kind of beer that makes me swoon, do you hear, swooon! Each further sip cause me to reel back again, and further settle into this luscious enveloping of beauty...yes, every once in a while, you find beauty in a beer, and this is then...oh, Lordy.. Body, if we MUST get technical, is rather light, but don’t tell that to FLAVOR, oh, no, for the finish don’t know the meaning of that word, brother! Rings and chimes in the caverns of the senses for what seems like forever! And long may it, indeed! I can see no further pleasure to be found of a beer of this caliber, if there is any other...I’m going to have a fine time emptying this bottle, oh, yes, sir! I take back my previous comments about France and beer ...if there’s more like this, France, I’ll forgive you for Fischer, but, PLEASE, more of THIS!!!!

This is a great Biere de Garde. Thanks Phil. Yeasty and malty flavors. Aroma is musty like its been aged forever. Finishes very clean, smooth, and chewy. Recommened.

New shipment in 2004 though it may still be a 2003 bottling. Pours a lovely light orange-amber/yellow, lightly hazy, bottle conditioned with a big slightly creamy wheat colored head. Aroma is big and fruity, golden delicious apples, lightly spicy hops, raw barley, dusty cobwebs, and grassy herbs. Flavor is equally impressive; vanilla liqueur, spicy yeast, yellow candied fruits, touch of sweet caramel and maybe some orange blossoms. Mouthfeel is smooth and almost creamy, but has a nice sour/bitter hops bite on the finish. Wonderfully complex and balanced. Full to medium-full bodied.

Deep cpper with billowing head. Caramelly sweet aroma and a goregous hop aroma carried to the nose by by peppery carbonation. Goregously smoooth caramel malt flavor. Deeply bitter with good aromatic hop caracter as well, hallertau and/or styrian goldings??? It has an amazing lingering finish. This is a fantastic biere de garde--utterly world class. Beautifully smooth caramelly maltiness balanced by a profound and deep hoppiness. Fantastic!

Wonderful fruity, malty, sweet and lightly spicy aroma, with notes of pear, apple, powdered sugar, toffee, vanilla, dry leaves, herbal, grassy hop and faint mustiness. Attractive dark copper in color, with a massive, frothy, persistent head and thick sheets of lacing. Flavor profile is fruity and sweet, with hints of old leather, caramel, flowers, faint pepper and herbal, spicy hop, with some grass, cake and white grape in the finish. Medium-full bodied with a lusciously smooth, creamy and gently effervescent mouthfeel. Outstanding.

Unfiltered ambered peach. Huge fluffy, sticky white foam. Fresh peppery nose crammed with grassy hops and straw. Buttery pale malts, coconut oil, phenols, and white grape undertones. Somewhat tangy and woody. Fluffy, expansive on the tongue. Starts rather tangy trailed by candied pale malts and light pepper. Subtle dried apricot twang is held up by long doughy, powdery malts and a delicate spicy hop kiss. Very grainily malty throughout. Finishes with a table grape tingle amid a honeyed pale malt and spicy hop composition. Lingering honey and earth notes. Wine geeks would be flabbergasted by this earthy, musty, vinous, malty farmhouse ale.