Duyck Jenlain Ambrée

Brewed by Duyck
Style: Bière de Garde
Jenlain, France

750ml bottle. Sweet and warming from the off, with a caramel malt nuttiness and faint marzipan notes (alcohol). Faint nuts, wood and almond in aroma. Strawberry jelly red with an off-white slick of suds. Wheat, caramel, cardboard and biscuit in the aftertaste. Lacks any depth of malt character. Sick of watery reddish beers at this abv with no complexity or real flavour beyond that of alcohol. Dead, insipid, completely unexceptional. Can’t be arsed pouring another glass of it.

Bottle: Complex and very well rounded, fruity and malty with a nice balance on the alcohol level. Creamy, great.

Very good, yellowish head, irregular, over foxy-orange beer. Parsley, bit of caramel, light-coloured malts. Also a nice, deeper smell of fir- or pinewoods, that I do not recall from earlier days. Light piney touch on a rather thinnish beer, characterized by the caramel/toasted malts. Maybe just a touch of diacetyl (!), and the parsley - generally sweet. Alcohol enhances just the lightly burning MF. Rather thinnish, but quite slick. The ubiquitous BdG, the icon that survived. It might have never ranked amongst my topfavourites, I would never call this poor.

On tap at The Victory in SE Portland, OR. Huh, so this is a Biere de Guarde... It took me by surprise. Pours amber with almost no head. Tastes a lot like a douple to me. It tastes sweet of raisins and dried fruit. Very sweet, no appreciable hops presence. The palate is good, because it is syrupy, but pretty carbonated with a fair amount of alcohol to cut through.

75 cl bottle with a best by 12/12/2008 (7346). Purchased from Cora outside Strassburg, France. Poured a clear copper color with a thin wispy white head. Aroma of sweet caramel, an earthy character, and slightly hoppy. Body started sweet and malty with a nice balance and a bready finish. Flavor is thick, but quickly thins into an astringently bitter tone. Surprisingly, this was a very drinkable beer from France, and one I’ll buy again.

Bottle 750, pours a clear amber red color, smallish head. Slight copper notes in the nose, some medium to light malts, a bit bready. Nice backbone some slight sweetness but warm and delicious. A Nice brew no doubt.

Sweet and malty yet refreshing and begging for some food to wash down. Drank at La Gueuze cafe in Paris. 33 cL bottle pours classic amber color with fading white head. Sweetish cookie aroma with tinges of apple and maple. Rather sweet flavor, just short of cloying thanks to a very slight bitterness, soft carbonation and maybe a bit wet. Lightly bitter and sweet aftertaste. Would be the perfect complement to something roasted and salty... somebody bring me a bird.

Bottle at home. bread, floral, amber, clear, aminimal head, light sweetness, light body, lively,