Lost Abbey Avant Garde Ale

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

A lovely beer. I’ve had several 750s of this, and my appreciation rows. A wonderfully warm beer that also manages to be crisp and complex, with the grassy and spicy character I just love from this style. Rich body for something so dry in the finish, it’s a fine one.

Small tenacious tan head, good retention and lace, fairly sticky. Murky orange gold color. Nose is mildly sweet malts, caramel, faint citrus and a strange grassiness. Body is med/light,sorta thin, lightly creamy mouthfeel, a hint astringent. Medium sweet malt flavors, caramel with notes of, toffee, apple and alc. thats not needed with a 7%er. Finish is dry and lightly fruity. Surprisingly tame. Props to dirty_martini for the 750!

(Bottle) Pours orange amber. Sweet malty aroma with fruity, spicy and floral notes. Some coriander, orange, apricot and maybe a touch a pineapple. A bit syrupy, almost candy like. Clean malty flavour with a medium sweet, syrupy and spicy finish. Coriander, orange, and apricot in the flavour as well. Sparkling carbonation and a soft dryness. Some caramel notes both in the nose and in the taste. Medium body.

Soft white grape, ginger and pineapple nose. Soft delicate yet complex on the palate. Soft grassy hopping at the end leads to a wonderful enticing yet refreshing finish.

Bottled at Oliver twist, Stockholm. Clear deep golden with a low but firm white head. Buttery aroma with notes of Seville oranges, white bread, minerals and wet grass. The flavour starts quite sweet of oranges, butter, white bread and yeast with dryish undertones of grass and herbal hops. Well-balanced aftertaste of yeast, banana and toasted bread. A very nice take the on the style

Orange-golden beer, well-carbonated under irregular, just off-white head, leaving textbook lace. End of bottle fully opaque as fruit juice. Spicey and herbal nose, peppery. Bit of ginger, pineapple. Very nice, actually. And a whiff of old apple brandy. And all the time, underbuild of toasted malts. Slightly sharp, toasted flavour, still spicey but less peppery. Root spices, bitterroot, mustardseed. Further slightly grassy. Warming up, bitter almonds flavour. Though sharp MF, pleasing palate wherein all the flavours from the taste fuse to a great total (this might be a convoluted way of stating that the beer has great balance, IMO). Medium bodied, bit of alcohol. I would not call it a bière de Garde, but then, the limits of this "style" are so broad that they more than probably encompass this as well. It’s just a great amber-golden ale... Thanks to brewboy....

golden to honey color with a nice fluffy white head. pretty malty and definitely yeasty aroma with lighter fruits like oranges and tangerines, with some hops in the background. nice flavor, not too complex, mostly citrusy with a sour finish and slightly bitter palate. good stuff

Saison/biere de garde that just doesn’t live up to expectations. Spicy flavors and aroma but one dimensional. Tthe taste just doesn’t stay on the palate.and the body is a bit thin and watery. I’m thinking this should be world class-but no. Would I drink another one-yes. Would I search for it at the ends of the earth-no.