Dupont Avec les Bons Voeux

Brewed by Brasserie Dupont
Style: Saison
Tourpes-Leuze, Belgium

Serving date: 2009-02-09. Served in tulip. 375 ml corked bottle with freshness date on the label (best before July 2013). The pour is golden orange with straw hues - it almost looks like it’s glowing. Ivory-colored, big and creamy head that sticks around for a while before settling and leaving some foam on top of the brew and chunky lacings on the glass. A good looking beer. In the nose, sharp medicinal phenols mix with a general spiciness and a smell of sweet citrus fruits. Faint smell of yeast as well. Despite plenty of phenols and tangy spices, the smell is rather fresh and pleasant. Big taste of medicinal phenols - distinct taste of band-aids - and prominent spices (cloves, and perhaps white pepper?). Together with an unexpectedly big presence of alcohol this results in a interesting and pleasant - but still quite demanding - hotness. All of these tangy and sharp flavors are balanced by a taste of sweet fruits - mostly orange and lemon peel, but also pineapple - and faint malts. No funky flavors to speak of. The finish is dry with a more spices, minimal hop bitterness and a bit of a twang from the alcohol. This one develops very nicely towards the end: It gets a little less edgy, more round and balanced, as the sweet fruit flavors becomes more prominent. Medium body, plenty of carbonation and all in all quite dry. But it still has a semi-smooth feel to it. A very good beer. Quite tasty as well. The big medicinal phenols and spiciness coupled with the sweet fruits makes it truly interesting, but also a bit demanding. Although it drinks really easily and is quite refreshing, the alcohol and the spices becomes a little too prominent and somewhat demanding after a while. Serving type: bottle (Copy of old Beer Advocate review)

bottle Pours a hazy yellow with a huge white head. Good head retention. Notes of lemon, earth, dust, funk, cheese, dough, pear. Complex. Awesome beer. neat stuff. A big bodied world class saison.

Paired with Thanksgiving dinner. Pours a hazy dark yellow with a thick white head. Aroma is an awesome blend of funky, earth, horse blanket, tart sour apple. Smooth malt body with touches of citrus. An outstanding brew that I was surprised I never rated.

Smells of light malts and heavy yeast smell. A bit peaky, but not quite citrusy. Very opaque, lots of thick particulates, very light orangy, lots of head at first. Tastes the same as it smells, light-medium malts, lots of yeast in the taste. Palate is also affected a lot by yeast, very fizzy and warm bubbles in the mouth. It’s almost too much, but the yeast flavour binds it all together, sort of. A pretty nice beer, but almost too much fanciness, or maybe because I’m new to saisons.

Bottle. Poured a deep gold with a thick white head. Aroma was full of yeasty, floral and fruity notes. Flavor is well balanced with the notes listed above, as well as a bit of sourness.

From the Bottle at the Falling Rock Tap House, Denver 26/09/2009 Some malt aroma. Golden coloured and a little hazy in appearance. Bready and strong in alcohol with a crisp slightly dry and bitter malt finish.

Very musky saison beer. A highpoint in all saison-brews, at least in my book. This has all it needs: dryness, muskyness, sourness and it’s refreshing like nothing else! An awesome beer, deserves the 100 percentile, definately!

750. Huge rocky head with the definitiion of ’lacing’ happening. Nose is peppery yeast, pears, a little watermelon and a slight funkiness (like prosciutto/melon balls), wrapped up in some booze. Taste is the nose, a touch of tart sourness and, IMO, the heat playing prominently in the finish,, taking away from some of the delicate spiciness the nose promises. Good stuff - not as complex, refreshing and wonderful as their "normal" saison, but good stuff nonetheless.