Allagash Avancé

Brewed by Allagash Brewing Company
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Portland, Maine USA

Serve in Trappist glass, Tulip, Tumbler

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EBF 07. Pours a muddled dull dark copper with a slight lasting head. Aroma is slightly sour with some lacto, frutiy sweetness, but kept in check with some tart quality and some oak and vanilla. Nice full flavor with hints of strawberry, oak, vanilla, earthy phenols, spicy yeast, and a great crisp slightly tart finish. Light sour qualities from the acids in the fruit make this much better than the original Four. Completely different beer.

On tap at Monk’s Cafe for Allagash Day last year. Pours a deep, deceptively dark amber mahogany with a thick, fluffy, one-finger white head. Tightly bubbled and leaves tons of lacing. Aroma of freshly picked strawberries, raspberry jam, freshly baked bread, farmhouse funk, and slightly odd hints of earth and glue. The aroma is outstanding in its complexity and uniqueness, as well as its flawless masking of any traces of alcohol. Full, tight body with a heaviness that balances out the sweet tartness of the brew. Mouthfeel is bittersweet, fruity, and ultimately incredibley smooth and mellow. Finishes with a bit of strawberry tart and huge oaky flavors. This is a truly special, exceptionally unique, sour ale.

375 thanks to AirForceHops. Orange/brown color. Big pop of the cork but decent carbonation overall. Strawberry, chocolate and sour come together in a pleasant way. Glad to have tried this.

On tap at pizza port Carlsbad. Dark reddish brown with a creamy off white head. Caramel strawberry and green apple aroma and taste with a lot of red wine character and solid notes of vanilla and oak velvety palate and a tart finish of more green apple and caramel. Excellent.

375ml shared by duchessedubourg.
Appearance : Hazy amber with a small head.
Aroma : Stawberries with rubbery notes. Notes of strawberry jam.
Taste : Nice strawberries with spices. Light alcohol on finish with more strawberries.
Overall : Nice strawberries presence. The light rubbery feeling on the nose bugged me a bit. Enjoyable fruity profile but could be better integrated. Overall nice beer but nothing so special. Vrienden was way better.

Bottle thanks to ChuckyCheese (BA). Poured into two cantillon tulips, one had a nice little finger of foam that lasted until the very last sip and the other’s head faded very quickly, brown pour with a distinct reddish tint. Aroma: At first I get a lot earthy, damp forest floor like aromas but the strawberries are very present and strong. Some molasses is still perceptible in the aroma. Taste is sweet and tart, the strawberry and oak flavors are dominant here. Palate: Medium-light carbonation, a bit of alcohol perceptible on the finish. Very nice beer, it grew on to me.

4oz pour at the Lupulin Reunuless at RFD DC. Pours a hazy, copper amber with a creamy white head. Big nose, malty, boozy, tropical fruits. Flavor is fruity, some booze, tropical fruits, vanilla, wood, some berry patch. Medium bodied, tart, sweet, fruity finish. Perhaps a few too many flavors competing.

Bottle courtesy of dcschiller. Pour is murky caramel with an off-white head. Smells like a belgian hospital with touches of strawberry! And that’s not a bad thing. Huge aromas of bandaid, aspirin, strawberry, light florals, oak, and funk. Flavor shows pretty much the same with some additional earthiness as well as some brown sugar. Overall it is extremely well balanced and complex enough to be interesting. More please.

375ml bottle with several months on it. The pour yields a rather hazy, deep garnet colored body with a glowing amber edge that shows when backlit. A frothy head is initially tall and rocky, slowly collapsing to a smoothed out, dense, lasting blanket with ramped up edges. Random skinny flares and jagged paint-splatter splotches of lace mark the glass.

The nose is initially a bit funky, hinting at some plastic band-aid. After walking away from the glass for a good twenty minutes or so, however, it mostly blows off to reveal a sweet-tart, rustic, slightly earthy dark Belgian aroma. The brown candy sugar base sports a darkly caramelized edge, working with burnt molasses and peanutty barrel wood to lend some toastiness. Strawberries are distinct, yet mostly subdued, giving an air of red berry tartness that works nicely with dusty brett that has also crept in. In short, if you can wait for the plastic note to dissipate, it smells pretty damn nice, but you shouldn’t have to do that.

Flavors are a bit different. The brett really asserts itself, suggesting of dusty funk and even some grilled green apple, while the strawberries concentrate quite a bit more than the nose would suggest. Caramel, blackened candy sugar, and burnt molasses are all fairly well attenuated, having been eaten up by the brett. Sharp, twangy, sour mash bourbon shows true character of the buggy, old wood. I thought it might get clean away from the plastic elements, but then I burped and got a mouth full of band-aid....yuck.

For a brew of this magnitude, the palate comes across rather dry, sporting a lively, peppery carbonation up front, moving towards a dry, slightly oxidized finish that I actually like a great deal. There is very little in the way of cloying sugar.

Overall, I’d say this beer was a great idea that unfortunately suffers a bit from quality control (or lack thereof). The band-aid notes, while not as overt as many other infected beers that I’ve had, are unforgivable nonetheless. It’s too bad, because we’d be talking elite 4.0+ status if it were cleaner.

375 bottle. Was really surprised how well the strawberries came through. Very well done. Aroma has strawberries. Tastes is smooth and sweet. Very well made.

375 ML bottle, AirFroreHops Shared this bottle with me. Cloudy brown pour, fluffy white head. A bit of floating sediment in the glass. Aroma is oak and tart strawberry and some sugar. Flavor is very close to what you’d expect with the aroma, very subtle oak wood at first with a little tart finish. A hint of molasses up front giving way to slightly sour and acidic cherry on the finish. The label states this is 10.8% ABV. I don’t pick out the ABV at all, it is hidden nicely. This is a border line sour ale/ Wild Ale in my eyes. If you like slightly sour brews, you will like this!