Arbor Phat Abbot Flemish Noir

Brewed by Arbor Brewing Company Pub & Eatery
Style: Sour Ale/Wild Ale
Ann Arbor, Michigan USA

Serve in Snifter, Tulip, Tumbler

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Dark brown and purple color with a white, fluffy head. Fruit (plum, red grapes) up front with a bit of funk in the nose and tip of the tongue. Prickly tobacco and plum notes surprise the palate, and overall it’s quite mild and quiet, but never all that good. A strange beer.

10 oz. tulip in the ABC taproom. Move on to the next experiment. Decent aroma for being at a bar, but I like my Belgians and their wannabes to have a crisp, carbonated mouthfeel. The sour took over any chance for that, and then some.

On tap at the brewpub. Wafts of faint port and cherry syrup eminate, barely there. Pours the color of dark mahogany, tinted with ruby and bordered by a thin rim of white. Flavor immediately presents itself as a lactic mess and even based on the description of how this was brewed, there’s no way that it could have come out right. Through a mist of buried caramel comes Iranian yogurt poured on canned cherries. Sugar and then from there on out it’s parching, one-dimensional tartness. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some lactic fermentation, but this just doesn’t work. Under attenuated and a lactic mess. Curt. What this really needs is about a year in an oak barrel for Brett and Pedio to catch up, eat some sugars and make this nice. It actually has potential, which is kind of weird, but this just shouldn’t come out in this form. I get the real sense of impatience with this brewer.

Sample at brewpub. Smells and tastes like sour cherries and liquor. The sourness and the alcohol overpower the taste.

Draught, Ann Arbor. Arrives in a small tulip, quite cold. Very dark brown, with a nice little head that dissipates quickly. Smells of bark, sweet raisins, bread. Tastes like walnut, caramel, nutmeg, and a nice lactic acid presence. Good, but fell apart (total loss of carbonation, for one thing) when warm. A good effort but I didn’t take home a growler, so make of that what you will.