Victory Grand Cru

Formerly brewed at Victory Brewing Company
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Downingtown, Pennsylvania USA

Cork dated Vintage 2003. Beer pours (in Chimay glass) a medium orange-golden that light can easily penetrate with a generous amount of bananna-yellow, off-white head that relaxes, but lingers enough to look good, eventually reducing to a thin film to nothing at all. Aroma is of straw and grass. Flavor is of watered down straw and grass with a bit of citrus bite, a note of hoppiness and a defined, but controlled ability to strip the saliva out of your mouth and replace it with the slightly fruity-orange, straw aftertaste. Nothing spectacular, however, this may be a "young" bottle. Perhaps age would have reflected more kindly on this brew. Sampled at 67 degrees Fahrenheit.

(Bottled 5/15/03) Orange yellow with white head. Big aroma for fruit and spicey hops. This one tastes like a Belgian barleywine, with lots of sweet malt flavor accented with a big hop bitterness and flavor, yet fruity like a Belgian beer. Interesting and excellent offering.

Good Belgian Strong Ale. Fruity, spicy, and malty. Finishes dry, clean, and crisp. Recommended.

Orange-amber, slight haze; irregular, ambercoloured good head, slowly shrinking to nothingness. Fruity nose, like preserved and dried apricot, alcoholic. Starting with a typical USA piney hops onslaught, underbuild by quite good light-coloured malts. Quite some sweetness. Chestnut-flour taste, slight oxidation it seems. Beer ends rather sweet, but every new gulp gives a fresh dose of good hops, until warming up too much. Full-bodied. Oily, slick mouthfeel. Alcohol obvious without burn. Aftertaste becomes distinctly grapey. Truth to tell, the nose isn't very much. The rest is all the better. This is actually a very refined beer, vying with the best. Certainly not Westcoast - brutal. But Belgian???

Beautiful orange amber colored that is slightly hazy. Poured a good size head initially then settled down to a scattered thin film. Aroma is fruity, malty with hints of yeast and alcohol. Very lively carbonated mouthfeel. Flavor is quite malty and fruity and a bit sweet. Has a bit of a dry bitter finish. May benefit from aging a year.

750 ml. corked & caged bottle. 5/15/03 bottling date. Poured out a brilliant golden color. Had a huge head at first. It slowly faded to a decent lacing. Aromas of sweet caramel malts, slight spicy hops notes & some fruitiness. Tasted very good, with a citrus note to it. Corriander spice in the mix as well. The spices compete with the malts in a good way. Finished crisp & spicy. A really well made beer here, gang.

Clear, effervescent, amber-copper hue. Yeasty alcohol nose. Frothy off white head, slowly diminishing. Sweet, medium bodied, smooth caressing texture, acidic, mildly bitter, finishing with a mixture of yeast and peppery alcohol. I feel that this will mellow out and unfold very nicely with age. Interesting.

Definite alcohol bite at first, then mellowed and turned into a quite flavorful fruity and sweet belgian ale.