La Bracine Brune

Brewed by La Brasserie du Pays Flamand
Style: Bière de Garde
Blaringhem, France

Serve in Snifter, Tulip

send corrections   |   shelftag   |   edit barcodes   |   add pic

330ml bottle. After all of this, is this what we get? We must only begin to understand... we don’t have to be like this; in fact it’s a beautiful amber-black concoction with a huge amount of head that you can only admire. The aroma is spicy barley and a few malts, however, and little else. The taste is a slightly barley-watery-spicy mix that is decent, palatable, but not great. Missing the point of beer, in fact; it’s decent, no doubt, but missing a few sparks to get it going and get it into international-class status.

Bottle 33cl, a dark beer with good head and good retention. Nose is intense on vinous, dark fruit and rosted notes. Aroma is sour, on oak and red fruit, dry, cherry, if this is the wanted taste then this beer should be set as a flemish brown. Long oak and cherry notes, burnt notes too, tartre, very dry especially at the finish with no hops notes .

Scusate, ma che bière de garde sarebbe? A me pareva l’incrocio fra una stout ed una di quelle ales belghe un po’ pasticciate sul generico.

Bottle. Red dark brown colour with a beige head. Aroma is dry, coffee, fruit. Flavour is sour, malt, berries, fruit, hay, coffee, caramel. Strange beer.

330 ml bottle. Dark, reddish amber with a thin beige head. Aroma is light roasted malt, coffee, berries and a hint of caramel. Flavor is light roasted malt, chocolate, some bitterness and quite sourish. Medium body. Quite refreshing but a bit unusually sour, still drinkable.

Botte.Pours dark brown with an off-white head.Aroma of coffee, chocolate, berries and hay.Flavor is sweet and somewhat sour with some toffee and coffee.Medium body, average carbonation.

Bottle, from trade with fonefan. A dense, off-white head of finger-thick size sits on top of a clear, reddish brown body. Quite coffee-ish on the nose, roasted and with a touch of berries and caramel. The flavor is slightly sourish, but also roasted, almost coffee-like and with that same berry touch found in the aroma. Medium body, slighlty acidic. Nothing really bad here, but quite strange. Like the maltyness, but sourness isn’t in place. 110406

750mL courtesy of a beer friend bringing back from Belgium. Poured cloudy reddish brown with big bubbles of a tan head. Aroma of wild grapes. Flavor is slightly acetic with a musty edge and slightly thin and medicinal edge. Never would have pegged this as a Biere de Garde.

Nice dark colour with pretty head. On the nose: malty, slightly chocolaty but no complexity. On the palate, I’m sorry but I couldn’t even swallow this. Infected and vinegar like......to resume I couldn’t even cook with it....went in the sink!

My Bottom Line:
Jam-like fruitiness develops the semblance of grapes and blackberries before mild tartness concludes this fizzy and unfortunately dusty ale.

Further Personal Perceptions:
-A veil of foam tops the dark brown.
-The finish is also quite mineral.
-The body is thin and makes the mouthfeel reminiscent of carbonated fruit juice.
-The dusty personality is sadly not of the rustic kind.

Bottle.