Cap d’Ona Blonde Spéciale au Muscat de Rivesaltes

Brewed by Brasserie Cap d’Ona
Style: Fruit Beer
Argelès-sur-Mer, France

Serve in Flute

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Bottle. A short lived, fizzy white head floats atop a light yellow body, with loads of bubbles streaming towards the top. Aroma is very sweet, almost candisugary or honey-like. There is evident fruitiness here, but I can’t really place it. Since it’s brewed with grapes, I guess that’s what it is. Apart from that, there isn’t a lot else going on. Some grains. That’s about it. Very sweet on the tongue as well, with a finish that leans towards sour rather than bitter. A bit of spiciness in the finish. Light bodied and sparkly carbonation lends this drinkability. It’s very sweet though, so I’m not sure how it would fare as a session brew. Not a bad drink though.

Pours a light orange-straw color with a fizzly white head that manages to stick around as a small cap due to high carbonation streaming upward. Aroma is very heavy on the sweet muscat grapes with background notes typical of your average euro pale lager, i.e. grains, minerals. There’s also a strange note that, at least to me, smels like airplane. As in when you get on a plane and you get that canned air and fabric seats aroma. Or maybe it’s kinda new car-ish. Flavor is basically the same as the aroma, lots of grapes with a pedestrian lager profile behind it. This is a sweet beer but the body is thin with a short finish so it doesn’t really fatigue the palate too much. I kinda dig the grapiness. If I’m gonna have a random French hot-day beer, I’d rather it taste like grapes than molding barley and hard tap water like Kronenbarf. Now that I think about it, I’m not even sure that this is a lager anymore. I kinda just assumed it was, because it smells like one, but then again how many fruit lagers are there? As it warms it takes on a vanilla pudding/honey character to go with the muscat. Thinking this is an ale now. Six percent with grapes. Can’t be a lager right? Further research is showing that this is a lager fortified with muscat wine, not just a beer with grapes. Weird.

8% of the make-up is AOC muscat at 15%. Very unique and the impact is noticeable with rich tropicl fruit and apricot. Strong on both nose and palate and flavours appear well integrated. However, the beer is nothing to write home about and seems to be a very basic, if honest, lager.