La Choulette Blonde

Brewed by La Choulette
Style: Bière de Garde
Hordain, France

Serve in Snifter, Tulip

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UPDATED: SEP 27, 2003 750ml bottle. Leaving the large amount of chunky yeast at the bottom of the bottle, this one pours a mostly clear orangish-gold with a thin and tightly-knit white head. The aroma is malty sweet, with a hefty dose of fruit, most notably peaches. There's a bit of spiciness, along with a slight medicinal phenolic note. Some barnyard yeast as well. The flavor starts out quite sweet, before a peppery spiciness takes hold and attempts, but fails, to keep the honey-like sweetness in check. Like in the aroma, there's some barnyard yeast and musty farmhouse character, but it really gets mauled by the near-cloying sweetness. More medicinal phenolics. Fairly thin on the palate, with a slighty dry finish that has a touch of alcohol both in mouthfeel and flavor. I also detect a hint of a white grape peel flavor and astringency in the aftertaste. Despite the four or five main flavor components, this brew comes as across as thin, lacking in complexity, and overly sweet. Quite the lackluster example of the Bière de Garde style.

33 cl. bottle. The head is nice on this warm golden beer. The aroma is malty and the flavour develops in steps: malt, fermented apple, citrus and honey - and then it’s like the notes go backwards after a light bitterness, ending where it started with the malt.

Ambrée aux reflets orangées, peu de mousse blanche, très faible dégagement gazeux lors du service. Arômes de cask boisé, de pêche en concentré, de sirop de mais en quantité, de grain et de muffin au son sur une faible note anisée. Légumes bouillis, maîs et jus de planche ne sont qu’un faible attrait pour l’énorme résidu de sucre non-transformé. Texture aqueuse dans un corps semi mince, carbonatation timide et effacée.

Just can’t get on with this at all. Thick, treacley, Marmite-yeasty smoky honey nose. Potently boozy peaty malt more evocative of malt whiskey than any beer I’ve tried, including those brewed with added whiskey or aged in whiskey barrels. Glenmorangie and lemonade. Way too sweet. A very, very acquired taste for the lover of intensely sickly, whiskey-flavoured beers. Not remotely balanced or subtle, but I can still appreciate its a well-crafted beer. Urgh.

Bottle, bought @ Aakjærs, Esbjerg.
Pours clear golden with a big, frothy, white head. Aroma is malty, sweet with some notes of fruity oranges and brewing cereal. Fine, creamy mouthfeel. Sadly the flavour is marred by a clear vegetable note that overwhelms the notes of yeast and light caramel. Very sweet and not really my thing.

Hazy peach amber colored beer, topped with an eighth of an inch of sudsy nearly white foam. Good carbonation is evident. The head slowly dies back to a bubbly froth. Subsequent pours produce twice as much head, but this is still short-lived. Scant lacing. Mildly tart cider-like aroma. First impression: The beer starts out okay, with a smooth sweet light caramel malt, but then it turns strange with a soft and mushy, air-browned, and over-ripened apple. This ultimately gives way to a bandaid finish and a light metallic aftertaste. Later: The caramel maltiness remains as it was, the apple is now a little like those red or green candied apple rings that you get in a can or a jar at Christmastime. I despise those things. Besides, the apple is still over ripe. The bandaid and metallic flavors have now thankfully subsided. Medium body, solid carbonation. I don’t care for the apple flavors in this one, and even though the beer subsequently improved, I can’t get over my first impressions of bandaid and metal.

UPDATED: SEP 3, 2003 [Rerate] Blond ale, poor head, poor aroma, just a little malty, simple flavour, sweet, not enough malty; really light palate.
[22-05-2002, 5-3-6-2-11]: gold ale. Sweet aroma, some malt, lightly corky. Sweet, some body, without malt taste. Poor palate, with only a few hops.

The aroma is very light. The color is orange and it has a beutiful though fast disappearing head. The flavor is too sweet with a weird malt flavor that vanishes too fast compared to the strength with coriander notes. A sweet dryness lingers. All in all a bad flavor.

750ml, from memory, pours a pale color with nice head. aroma is awful, sickeningly sweet, semi funky, staw adn just weird, nothing pleasant and not that great weird biere de garde thing going on. just bad. flavor is the same, rather sweet, subtle oak and vanilla, can’t recall what else but pretty nasty. i hope i never have this again.

750ml Bottle. Blonde color, white head. Very sweet beer, almost too sweet. Needs more balance.