Liefmans Goudenband

Brewed by Liefmans (Moortgat)
Style: Sour Ale
Oudenaarde, Belgium

One of my all time favorite beers. Sweet and sour elixer is sure to please.

2007 bottling tasted Feb 2008.

Cork opens with an aggressive pop. Pours a deep brown, nice tan head, fair bit of floating matter. The aroma is malt vinegar and cherries, a hint of soy sauce.

Lovely blend of sour finishing sweet, acidic tones quickly yield to strong flavors of cherries (my wife thought it must have had cherries added!), plenty of cherry pit and oak tannins, lovely sweet turn to fruit caramel recalling Kuhnhenn’s Raspberry Eisbock slipped in behind a sour ale.

Beautiful microcarbonation creates a full smooth but active mouthfeel, just lovely, mild acid burn on the back of the throat, nothing intense, neither too thick nor to thin, just on target.

Man this is good stuff. I can’t wait to try a bottle with more age on it. But if I want more age, wait I must.

Murky brown with a thin but persistent head. Nice smell of cherries, caramel. Medium body and lightly carbed. A mostly sweet flavor is of pit fruits with a tart earthy dryness to balance.

Aroma: Sour cherries and raspberries. Very acidic. Dark Cloudy Brown bubbly head. Interesting sour fruit flavor but no overwhelming, nice and sweet in the finish. Smooth and clean palate. Easy to drink, very delightful.

Bottle. Nose is light caramel, dark fruit, and a faint acidity. Cloudy dark brown with a quick-fading head. Balanced sourness punctuated by sweet malt notes. Vinuous body, rich and clean. Fantastic.

2006 vintage bottle from West Lakeview Liquors, Chicago. Dark brown body with a slight reddish hint and thin tan head. Aroma is semi-sour with oak, cherry, earthy, dirty, some darker sugars. Flavor is really earthy cherry with a slight sourness, sweet red fruit, very nice. Medium to light body and nicely carbonated. Nice all around but missing something everywhere at the same time.

Pours dark amber with floaties and a fully receding light tan head. Aroma of oak, sour oak, and cherry. Tastes of oak, cherry, lightly sour, and leathery. Mouthfeel is light to medium bodied, dry, with lively carbonation.

375ml from Once Upon a Vine, Richmond. Glad I finally got to try this, what with Liefmans apparently going under. It’s a very fine sour brown. It pours thick and with a lively carbonation, but man I think this is the highest concentration of yeast floaties I’ve ever seen! Doesn’t bother me much. A substantial malty brown, that’s high quality, is the foundation of this beer. But it’s very pleasantly tart, with traces of the barrel there, and a nice dry finish. Really good stuff. Hope I can snag another bottle.