Liefmans Goudenband

Bottle at The White Horse on Parsons Green (London), a cloudy brown with a filmy head. A warming malt aroma with touches of yeast. A very rich and sweet malty palate. Full bodied and smooth, but a little carbonation that works well. Fruity flavour with hints of chocolate.

Pours beautiful deep red. Nose and flavor has a lot of dates, plum and raisins. Especially rich on dates. Very sour, has almost a citric and cider like sourness to it. Not familiar with this kind of beers (didn’t even know of them), but this was a nice curiousity.

Brownish with a small off white head, almost tannish. Sticky spots of lace. Sour aroma of grapes and malts. Some caramel notes. The flavor is tart and a touch dry. The sourness flows into cherries and again some malts. Body is crisp and the finish is a touch jaw clenchingly tart.

Bottle: Pours a dark copper brown scotch color with thin head and decent lacing. The nose is ripe and fruity with some oxidized caramel malt, light balsamic vinegar (not the sour part) and cherry notes. The flavor is balanced with a tart and snappy sweet impact with a smooth malty creame mouthfeel. Finish is a bit metallic. Overall it’s not quite that memorable, but it’s still a tasty beer.

Bottle thanks to HogtownHarry. Poured a deep red body with decent size head and alot of head retention, looked great. Aroma is of grapes, plums, similarities to a red wine. Flavor had plum, grape, and cherry qualities to it with some yeast being present. Enjoyable.

on tap at maproom, brown w/ reddish hue color, not much head. aroma of cherries, raspberries, and vinegar. sweet cherry, vinegar, plum, and dark fruits. semi-sweet but not sour enough. finishes with some sourness. palate is weak, watery, and doens’t last long enough.

Deep copper colored beer, nearly clear but a slight bit of haze. Poured into a stemmed glass, it gives a couple of inches of tan foam. Very fizzy at first, mellow out quickly to a slow stream of bubbles. Smells a little bit tart, with definate malt and some raspberry. Sweet maltiness up front, chased by some candi sugar and raspberry flavor. Rounded out with a faint tart acidity and some earthiness. I remember this beer having more acidity in the past. Honey and some more raspberry in the finish. Also an almost sherry-like aftertaste, very pleasant. Very soft on the palate with a complex residual tartness.

Had some high expectations to this, but to mussels I better prefer something more sour. Otherwise it’s great. Sweetmalted in a good combination with the sourness and Liefmans makes definately some of the best beers in the world. Vinous, fruits, vinegar, metal and caramel.