Lost Abbey Avant Garde Ale

Brewed by Port Brewing/Lost Abbey
Style: Bière de Garde
San Marcos, California USA

Bottle pours hazy orange with a creamy off-white head. Aroma is doughy with notes of apple and nutmeg. Flavor is the same, with added notes of peaches, fresh baked bread, and salt. Body is moderate, round, and soft. Definately a nice beer, just not one of their best.

Pours a lightly hazy light orange color with a fluffy medium head. The aroma is bready and yeasty with some floral and apple notes. The flavor is spicy and dry with a mildly hoppy and mildly fruity thing going on. The beer is mildly salty and has some floral flavors.

Pours a hazy orange color with an off-white, average, creamy, rocky head which is mostly lasting, leaving a small, creamy layer and some scattered, foamy lace. Nose is interesting and complex with plenty of pizza dough and fresh baked bread, light grains, honeyed bread, gala apple notes as if almost apple sauce-like with some tinges of cinnamon and nutmeg, light banana in there but not estery, and just some light earthy/mildly herbal hops. Flavor is much of the same, but spicier, more apple, and a some malt depth; caramel and toffee back everything up with lots of spicy cinnamon, almost pepper-like, some nutmeg, gala apples and skins, sweet and lightly tart, banana is very faint, the bready/doughy notes are light, and the hops are dry and earthy with some herbal notes coming in late. Palate is lively, velvety, medium, and round. Finishes with toasty caramel, hops drying out the palate, cinnamon spice, light apple sauce notes, and an overall moderate bitterness. The best word I can use to describe this one is delicate. The flavor really brought out the spicy note and the malt depth to make for a very interesting Biere de Garde. While not the best of the style I have had, it was incredibly drinkable and enjoyable. I am never surprised by the caliber of the beer produced at LA/PP and will continue to expect perfection from them. Great example of the style with so much to offer.

bottle poured a golden in color with a thin white head that diminished quickly. aroma has grains, pizza dough, some light spicing, and earthy hits. mouth feel is light with average carbonation. flavor picks up some caramel sweetness, grains, plenty of bread yeast, light bitterness, and some spice. not overwhelmed with this one.

If I bought a company that made hot dog buns on Day 1: we would add 2 buns to every package ... Day 2: work on deliciousness.

This corked and caged bottled brew from a bottle shop poured a small sized head of foamy finely sized white colored bubbles that were mostly diminishing and left behind a very hazy no visible carbonation dark orange colored body and a fair lacing. The aroma was bready and dough. The crisp mouth feel was tingly at the start with a mediumly tingly finish malty aftertaste. The thick flavor contained notes of malt.

Bomber. Pours murky orange with a full, very foamy head. Strong notes of a sweet apple cider vinegar-like trip. Lots of lacing on the foam as it dissipates. The first taste is initially pleasant enough, but is then discouragingly coppery and dankly bitter taste. Yeah, it’s not bad, but it’s just not that good. ABV isn’t too high, so I don’t think it’s just poorly disguised booze. Mouthfeel is watery, and none of the pleasant-looking carbonation from the pour lingers into the palate. Further tasting lessens some of that early unpleasantness and makes me think this brew just needed to breathe a bit? Yes, that must have been it, because the metallic flavor is 99% gone, replaced again by that pleasant cider-esque flavor from the initial aroma. With each additional sip the palate gets more complex and lingers nicely. Some flavor of bananas is sneaking in early on, only to morph into a brandy quality by the end. I’ve come full circle. Nice brew here.

Bottle at home ... copper ... mandarine and a little yeast ... sweet malt ... little toffee ... little citrus