Church-Key The Lactese Falcon

A deep dark brown ale, veering on porter colour, with a thick moka head. Smells of Oka cheese, bleu, with light tracle and fruits. In mout, a really sour and astringent beer, with unpleasant cheese notes, very lactic (as the name implies), a bit of rubber and organic materil. I like sour beers but this one is....uacala!!! Bottle from Probstk, bought at brewery... 10$/bomber.

This is waste matter from the plant and not fit for bottling. A Frankenstein of an experiment. Hey, if something works it’s good, but an experiment gone horribly wrong, dump it. Looks like vampire blood and that brown stuff in the glass. The taste is creamy cheesy and then whoh! aroma is rotting something in clothes. Taste of horrible cheese remains for hours. I drank very little before dumping the bottle..and my glass out.

On tap at Cest What
Appearance :brown painted ale with medium mocha crown. Good creamy lace created.
Nose :Sour, cheese with brown malt at back. Hint of sweet staled coffee.4-
Flavour/Palate : Tart sourness with out substance to it. Brown malt does not go well with its sour complexity. Lactic acidic malting. Failed attempt.

Draught. At C’est What Beer thing September 2007. Don’t get me wrong - I love this brewery, a solid producing micro from Eastern Ontario, but ... Well, it certainly looked good - murky cola-brown with a small tan head. But that aroma - consensus was "puke" "vomit" "baby shit" and oddly "Roberta" for some reason - seriously, I wanted to like this, but it stank like acidic parmesan cheese puke. The taste ... welll, also pukey, but for the first half second or so you could taste a nice sour cherry Flemish sour, but then CLANG, down came cheese and vomit ... essentially on a dare I chugged my sampler without holding my nose first, but I regretted that - for several minutes. The body was thick and, thanks to my imagination, seemed chunky - quite an unpleasant feel on the palate, and was sour and acidic not in any good way. Ignore any remotely positive ratings, this is - by far - the worst thing they’ve ever done. Ewww. I think I can still smell that crap. Rerate Oct 21 @ Volo - draught. Mostly acidic cheese, less (but still present) puke. When available in bottle, I will buy a few and try again in a year or more. Still seems like the label should say "Lievre" on it ... Original rating 1/4/3/2/5.

<P>October 2007. Draft at Volo. Brown body, small creamy tan head. Rich sweet cheese aroma - Parmesan, light blue cheese, light lactic acidity. (5-6) Lactic sourness throughout the flavour, a bit of the cheese character from the aroma, but not a lot. Muted cherries, light wood like not quite astringent hints of something in the finish that defies a better description. Average palate. Dramatically superior to the sample from the C’est What Festival. This was not to my liking, but it was at least serviceable enough to mostly enjoy a half pint, which is more than I can say about the first crack at it. 6/3/6/3/12 - 3.0 <P>Sept 2007. C’est What Festival of Small Breweries. Possibly the most talked about beer at the festival. Dark brown body wit a smallish beige head (3+). Pungent, extremely funky aroma of cheese - old parmesan with a hint of a mild blue cheese, just a hint of sour dark malt hiding behind the curtain, hint of rancid cherries. In the flavour a brief but glorious glimpse of sour cherries gives hope as to what this could have been before a wave of the same funky, cheesy strange melange of weird flavours overwhelms the proceedings again. Average palate with a prickly mouth puckeringly sour undertone. Thankfully, I didn’t really pick up on the vomit notes indicated by a number of others, though I did see a bit of the "cheese and socks" throughout. Glad to see someone experimenting with this style, but I *really* hope this was an experiment gone wrong rather than the planned result. This beer has done everything the Bible says - even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff! 3/3/4/3/7 - 2.0

Draught at ’C’est What? Festival of Small Breweries’. By far the most talked about beer at the fest! Pours a murky dark brown with an average size diminishing tan head. Aroma: Holy cow, what is that! Do I like it? I’m honestly not sure. It’s somewhat lactic along with yogurt, sour fruit and, I’m sorry to say, puke -- it goes from awful to O.K. Flavour starts with "Oh, no one wants that!" but then the next sip is "wait, maaaayybe". Again, it’s sour fruit and puke along with some spices and dark malt. Such an oddity, the flavour changes slightly each time. I’m not sure what to rate this puppy, I’m totally on the fence. I know it’s not as bad as the babies at my table made it out to be.

Aroma is Parmesan! WTF?! Dark brown, red at the edges. Taste begins with a sour/tart, fruitiness, then somehow there is that cheesy aftertaste? I love cheese as much as the next person, I even tried this on another occasion, it’s just not a very good rendition of a Flanders Brown. Thanks for trying.

On tap, Volo. Rating 1900. Sure been a lot of talk about this one, here goes. Aroma - straight funky blue cheese. There is little else hear to comment on, it is really pungent blue cheese. I like the smell of blue cheese so I really enjoyed it. Appearance is great, nice murky dark brown with a good size white head. Good taste - sour up front, some malt sweetness int he middle, tart linger in finish. I’m not sure the sour/sweet mix all that well together. Active sharp mouthfeel. Overall, I enjoyed it, and I thought it was a really solid effort in style most Ontario brewers would never, ever even attempt. I would recommend all of the initial C"est What samplers to try it again and re-rate if you ever get he chance, as your samples appear to be infected or off.