Liefmans Goudenband

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

Bottle 37,5 cl wrapped in paper, doesn’t state the year it was brewed. Pour a warm ruby red with a small off-white head and an acidic aroma. The flavour is sweet at first, with notes of toffee, artificial sweetener, prunes, salmiac and cherries. After this initial taste the taste gets sour, acidic, wine that has been open for too long and cider. Nice sour beer.

(bottle - corked & caged 375 ml - 2006 vintage) Dark ruby red pour with a very thin tan head. Aroma is tart, sour, and earthy with some sweetness and malts coming underneath. Some fruit notes and dark chocolate as well. Flavor is sweet and fruity with hints of sweet cherries, apple cider, and malts that gets overtaken by a mild sour and earthen note. Quite interesting and rather tasty.

Aroma consists of a very sweet caramel and candy apple coating aroma with some booziness. Has a barley wine esc smell. Pour is brown with an almost non-existant head. There are some floaties and yeast has stuck to the side of the bottle. Sourness is overpowered by the sweetness, cherry, caramel, alcohol and malt. Not really that tart or sour.

12 oz bottle of the 2005 edition. Pours hazy red brown with a bit of sediment at the end of the pour, foamy off-white head. Aroma is sour with some caramel sweetness, apple, dark fruit, and cherries. Flavor has a light sourness with sugary apple juice, grape, cherry. There’s a touch of oxidation, but not an unpleasant one. I have to say this is quite delicious; my only complaint would be that this great flavor doesn’t stay on the tongue long enough.

Tap at Lucky Baldwin’s. Very unique. Aroma is sweet malt and very indiscernible fruit. Color is a deep glossy brown. Flavor bespeaks serious age, which is always a possibility at LB’s. The sharpness had completely worn off and the sugar had a noticeable fruity gloss like that of a Tootsie Pop. Quite an oud bruin.

reddish brown of color with an offwhite head. A sweet/sour aroma with notes of raisins, dark fruits and caramel. a flavor of raisins, dark fruits and weak sour.

375ml Bottle: Sweet, slightly astringent aroma of raisins, figs, dark ripe fruits, slight alcohol, malts, caramel and nuts. Poured brown/amber/ruby in color with no head. Very cloudy. Not sparkling. Full of many large particles throughout. Flavor is heavily sweet and slightly tart. Tastes of malts, raisins, dark ripe fruits, nuts, caramel, light maple syrup, slight tart fruit, and a hint of wood. Medium body. Syrupy, coating texture. Soft carbonation. Sweet, syrupy, coating, malt and dark ripe fruit finish. Called a "sour ale," but there is nothing really sour about it.

Sampled at Backus’ Backyard Bash. Oh damn this was good. Brownish reddish with a small tan head. Sweet and tart berry nose. Sweet, lightly tart flavors, berries and sweet malt. So mellow and well integrated. Delish!