Liefmans Goudenband

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

Robe rouge très claire surmontée d’une mousse beige persistente. Arômes de cerises et d’agrumes. Saveurs de cerises, d’agrumes, de liège et de sucre.

Sampled from magnum bottle. Pours murky mahogany with a tjin, scattered white head. Aroma is quite complex: earthy and vinous with cherries and subtle hops spice. Flavor is balanced. Quite sour, fruity and earthy with a rich malt backbone. Medium-full body and well-carbonated. Unique, enjoyable and a must try.

Barnyard and sour wine aroma, which is very pleasant but not as powerful as it might be. Very dark brown. Considerable carbonation but the head is short lived. Several flavors. Balsamic vinegar, sweet fruit. Sour compared to many beers, but not very sour in its own right.

330 mL Bottle, corked & caged (2001 on the cork, sampled February 2006: strong and full tan, large bubbled head that, after 5 years can’t quite keep its form. Sour, black cherry aroma with a depth of sweet raisins and orange citrus. Creamy acidity with a strong hint of limestone and sour grapes. The gueuze like qualities have really developed and come to fruition…right up my alley.8/4/9/4/18 – 4.3

Fresh: This was my favorite beer I sampled while in belgium. A wonderfully dark ruby/burnt orange colour. Nose a bit musty with soft fruits and some malt. Flavour very complex, a fruit I can’t place (perhaps plums) and some nice sourness. I am not sure why this beer impacted me so much, but it was great. 10/4/8/4/18 – 4.4

Has a glass on draft that was perfectly uncarbonated. Not as acidic as I would of thought for a beer of this style but well balanced none the same. A solid maltiness with just enough acidity to balance in the absence of hop bitterness. This is a wild brew i could drink all night long.

Pours dark brown with nice lacing througout. Biggest chunks of yeast I’ve ever seen, the size of a grape in a 375ml bottle. Aroma was nice and sweet, with a hint of sherry. Flavor is sour fruit skin, red meat, sweet dark cane sugar, and a yeasty bite. Very flat beer, not muxh carbonation at all. Good beer, wouldn’t chase it down, but good.

bottle, 1992 vintage, thanks to slander for the heads up on where to find this. Pours a deep coppery brown, almost mahagany with a very thin head that fades but leaves some lacing. Aroma is very nice- lots of oxidation, plum, raisin, lightly sour, acedic, and very wine-like. Kind areminded me a bit of sherry. I was surprised at how- unsour this beer was overall given its old age. The cork gave some slight hiss as it opened so the carbonation was ok but jsut a bit lower than I had expected. Flavor also tastes oxidized with some cardboard, sherry, and some ripe fruits, some caramel malts, light acidity, acedic acid, and some cherry cough syrup. This was similar overall to the alexander but obviously older and much more oxidized. Not nearly as much pediococcus or brett. brux. giving all those cherry pie flavors as alexander but its still there. Wierd oxidized and astringent finish, lightly bitter, and slightly tart. Pretty good overall especially considering its age. Good find.

On tap at Minneapolis Town Hall. Mud brown color with a medium head that quickly fades to a thin film. Awesome aroma of dark, sour cherries. The taste, however, went awry. The cherry tasted more like cough medicine. Very syrupy and sticky. Bitter as heck, but not from any souring or cherries, just bad hops or malt. Slight metallic tang on the finish. I have a bottle to rate in the future; I’m hoping it was just a bad keg.