Struise Dirty Horse

Formerly brewed at De Struise Brouwers
Style: Sour Ale
Oostvleteren, Belgium

Served from jug at the Struise farm. Cloudy dark amber, minimal head. Aroma of vinegar and hay. Tart with some malt sweetness. Hugely complex flavour of horse blanket, lemon and black currant. Midly oaky. A 5y/o sample waslivelier and spritzier than the 25 y/o sample that had more juiciness. Simply fantastic!

Magnum bottle, courtesy of Urbain and Carlo at LCRBM08. Pours hazy brown with a fully gone head. Mild cherry fruity aroma at first. Light brettish note too. Very minor oxidised/oldish note. Flavour is smooth cherry-fruity-like flavoured to a mild caramel malt base. Smooth acidic to citric flavour with a light phenolic note on the back of the tongue. Lovely.

Magnum bottle@ LCRBM 2008, ’s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands
[ Courtesy of Urbain and Carlo ]. What a suprising treat. Unclear medium amber orange red color with a small to average, fizzy, fair lacing, mostly diminishing, off-white head. Aroma is Wow ;o) sour, acidic, berry fruity, cask wood, oak, wine. Flavor is Wow, heavy sweet, moderate acdic and moderate to heavy bitter with a long duration, round smooth and very well balanced. Body is medium, texture is watery to oily, carbonation is soft. In one word just WOW .. ;0)) Thanks again Urbain and Carlo, I will love to have anothor go with this beer .. [20081025]

Bottle, 7% at LCRBM08. Very good citric cherry aroma. Cloudy, slightly milky dark red colour. Very nice cherry flavour, the citric notes are more lemony than expected, and arrive quite late. Low carbonation.

Draught at 1st Borefts Beer Festival at De Molen. Hazy orange red coloured with a lacing off white head. Light acidic aroma of red wine with notes of caramel, vinegar and lactic acid. Fruity and light acidic flavour of vinegar and caramel with notes of red wine, oak, vanilla and berries. Tart finish. Well balanced acidity.

Bottle shared at the Struise Farm with Urbain, Mesandsim and Duff. According to Urbain this has had 1 year of secondary fermentation and 4 years on cask, making it 5 years old. It is orange / pale brown/gold with no head. The aroma is of cherries and a slight almond marzipan. It brought to mind an aged Chianti wine with the red cherries from Sangiovese. Brett and Rodenbach yeasts used on separate primary fermentations means that this beer has great complexity and character. Once you then actually drink it, this lambic quality kicks in. The finish just goes on and on and on. There is some caramel (caramelised cherries, said Duff), but it’s not really sweet. Some juiciness in the mouth. The fruit is just stunning. Bit of funk on the aroma. Not any mustiness on aroma. Great acidity on a lasting finish. Phenomenol. This will be on commercial sale from the Struise farm once they have their shop there set up and I for one will be going and buying this. Urbain then gave us a sample of his 20 year old version that the 5 year old is based on. More brown in the colour, but you can tell it’s the same beer. Less fruity, but still plenty of vinous cherries. It is like the most perfect red wine. Acidity has preserved it well. More almond marzipan. The fruit is just so stunning and the smoothness of the flavours. Little bit of spice/perfume. Simply, one of the best beers I’ve had. Thank you Urbain so much for letting us try this 4.9/5.0 Its got cherries, raspberries and strawberries. Woody aroma and first flavour, but then this explosion of red fruits, redcurrants. That first hit of cherry/almond is just so stunning, then settles down into lasting redcurranty sourness.

Syphon, kindly provided by Carlo and Urbain @ LCRBM 2008. I couldn’t get my nose out of the glass. Sherry notes in the very vinous aroma. Malty, sweetish, amazingly complex flavor. A slight sourness. Oak, laurel, cherry, mustard, butter. Tough to describe the multiple layers of flavors and aroma’s. Just in one word: WOW! At the 1st BBF @ De Molen I had the possibility to taste another sample. A bit mouldy perhaps, but this beer was again superb!

<i>A Mes rate: Samples from two 1.5 litre bottles at the Farm.</i>
Some from a 2005 bottle, some from a recent bottling of the original 20 year old barrel that was left in Urbain’s garage and finally, Urbain was generous enough to indulge me and blend the two so I was lucky enough to have three different goes at this one. Full write up to come, all I will say for now is:
Wow.
It’s abut time I stuck my notes in for this one. In all honesty I had forgotten that I had not properly rated it yet until Urbain appeared with a decanter full of it and a big smile on his face list time I was at the farm. Anyway... A beautiful soft red brown colour, just a lovely amber colour with just a faint hue of pinkish red. Every time I have had this the aroma makes my brain dance. The yeasty notes are wilder than a Tasmanian devil, the cherry is amazingly soft and delicate and rounded but so bloody adorable. Glorious bread and cakey notes in the background play a perfect supporting role but they are zingy and tarty as if they have been marinated in some cherry madness. Flavour wise this is up there with the best Flemish sours I have tasted, in fact it probably beats them all. Soft, gentle and brimming with finesse, elegance and such balance. The finish and development in the mouth is nothing short of incredible. Similar to the aroma it makes my head spin like a lovesick teenager. The mouthfeel is equally unreal. Caressed, then puched, then eventually caressed again. Wow. Just wow. Rodenbach eat your heart out.