Cambridge Benevolence

Brewed by Cambridge Brewing Company
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Cambridge, Massachusetts USA

GABF 2009. Pours hazy brown with an average, fizzy off-white head, somewhat diminishing with fair lacing. Aroma is heavy malt (cookie, caramel, toffee), light hop (herbs, grass), heavy yeast (dough, earth) with notes of cherry, wine, and brown sugar. Medium bodied, sticky texture, average carbonation, and a bitter finish. Long duration, moderate sweetness, acidity, and bitterness.

On tap at GABF 2009. Another great and really interesting beer from Cambridge. Pours a cloudy dark reddish-amber color with a small off-white head. Aroma is dark fruits, brown sugar, spices, oak, and orange peel. Flavor is sweet malt, spices, cherries, dates, orange, honey, candi sugar, red wine, and a little alcohol. Also a little oaky tartness to it that really adds to the complexity. Palate is medium-full with soft carbonation and very well-hidden ABV. This is a well-done beer overall.

(Draught) Pours a murky dark reddish brown body with a small beige head. Aroma of raisins, dates, vinous, honey, and cherry. Flavor of raisins, dates, cherries, candi sugar, light funkiness, vinous, caramel, light honey, and some vanilla. Nice complexity in this high abv Belgian Strong.

GABF 2009: Settles in the glass in a dark haze with an off-white topping. The nose is alive with bourbon, toffee, vanilla, wood, and chocolate. Moderately acidic mouthfeel brings notes of bourbon, chocolate, toffee, and sour wood notes. By far my favorite offering from this brewery at the GABF.

GABF2009 - holy hell! - this beer is huge in more ways than one - loads of sour cherry, fruit skin tannins, and light earthy funk in the nose, with a light touch of oak and acidity - date, raisin, sour cherry and other dark, heavy fruits in the flavor - warming, but not overpowering alcohol - some earthy wildflower honey qualities through the middle - red wine and oak characteristics cut the sweetness - this is some serious stuff.

A nice reddish amber ale with a thin creamy moka head. A wonderfully pleasant dark fruits in aroma, molasses, treacle and maderized porto, enticing and intense. In mouth, an interesting mix of dark candy cane extract, sour molasses, and raisins. Challenging in a good way. Rich and warming. On tap at brewpub, July 1, 2009

My Bottom Line:
This grandiose achievement in brewing harmoniously marries bourbon, sour cherries, medjool dates and wild yeast flavors into a luxurious body worthy of meditation. This ambitious project has bloomed into a most marvelous osmosis of Flemish Sour, Fruit Beer and Barley Wine.

Further Personal Perceptions:
-A slice of foam surfs the mahogany-tinged dark brown.
-Alcohol seems to vary a lot from batch to batch; from 8.6% to over 12%!
-Vinous fruitiness, tartness and wooden dryness meld beautifully into the vanilla sweetness.
-Alcohol is remarkably well hidden for a 12% brew.
-The soft tiny bubbles are effervescent, making this a very classy, easygoing sipper despite all the present flavors.
-Complexity here is endless, yet all flavors seem to coexist on the same plane. Very impressive!

On tap at the brewpub.

On tap, poured in snifter, at Cambridge Brewing Company. Pours dark brown-purple, with no real head. Downright ominous. Aroma has huge dark fruit and oak. Tons of raisin, dates, black cherry, and sherry-something. Flavor hits with equal bang, such a deluxe sweet and complex blend. I could go on and on about what is present, but I’d say that plum and sweet raisin dominate the entry, followed by chocolate covered fruit, oak, and sour cherry. No alcohol showing through at 12% ABV makes this beer all the more special. Excellent, too bad Cambridge doesn’t bottle this!