Liefmans Frambozenbier

Formerly brewed at Liefmans (Moortgat)
Style: Sour Ale
Oudenaarde, Belgium

very tart raspberry taste. sour enough to be enjoyable. very interesting and very drinkable

Fantastic bouquet aroma of tannined raspberries, including stems, but of the finest freshness. Sweet juicy berries right off the bush and right into the beer, the way berries added to beer should be. Running with this, a light caramel and then the galloping tides of sourness, precipitating in a luxurious blanket of steaming grains, lemon rinds and apple cores. Delicate, fragrant and intoxicating. Pour is a sensous ripe red raspberry juice, fringed with gold and topped with a creamy soft head, tinged florid amber. A single core of fuming carbonation. Flavor is redolent with sweet raspberry juice, frozen. Then a current of light malts sugars, mostly parched into oaky submission and glazed with sourness. Gentle and delicate. The sourness only dabs a parching sensation as it moves into a light haybarn grassy hop balance in the backend. The berries carry this whole train down the track. Edges of Brett crawl up my sinuses in the smack. A long heavy smack of raspberry caramel. Exquisite! Really the best summer beer a person could drink. As I continue to drink this, the impact and quality of the flavor becomes more static and less impressive, so I tend to pull it down some.

[Draught at White Horse, London] Cloudy dark red, no head. Balsamic raspberry aroma. Fairly sweet with medium body and some tart acidity. The complexity of the Goudenband is almost hidden in the raspberries, but it’s still in possessionof a fair bit of character.

Smells like strawberry jam. Nice redish color. Smooth drinking, very sweet. If there ever was a girly beer, it certainly is this one. I tasted this one out of the country, so I can’t say much for price. But the one I had, was excellent. I could have several!

If you rank this as a flemish sour,you’re deluding yourself. Craftman-like mixology at work here creating an overpowering but real fruit presense to cover many warts in young brews. Pours a clouded brown with red highlights....smallish pink cap....small bubbled massive carbonation. The nose is assaulted with sweet berry fruit and some musty tones..the fact these are real fruit aromas scores a point even if the aroma is overly strong. Malting is undetectable, hops are non existant and the main carrier here is a tartness from sour lambic bacteria and the fruit...there is some unnatural injected sweetness butting against the musty sourness in the body....finish is sweet and tart with a berry after taste...pleasant but wierd...what is this?

RERATE - 5 points overall up-rate- like the Goudenband has sweetness, body, lactic sourness, stone cellar and hint old wood - plus aroma and flavor of real raspberry - definite integrity ORIGINAL RATING: Well-made and not too challenging to drink. The raspberry & sugar sweetness are at about the extreme limit I would like them in any fruit beer (not too bad), and the flemish brown ale funk & complexity takes a careful, mild back seat. Definitely occasional.

Bottle from LCBO; the aroma is all raspberry; refreshing and sweet. The appearance has the quick dissipating pinkish white head with a burgundy red forming the colour. Flavour is all raspberry and tart; it automatically sough out the sour buds of my tongue and did not disappoint.

bottle-pours an offwhite head with brown/orange color. Aroma is raspberry. Taste is raspberry, malt, smooth. Occasional.