Lost Abbey Avant Garde Ale

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

Bottle courtesy of hopsmoker. Enjoyed at Belgian-themed dinner at maltydogs. Nice barnyard and yeasty profile, orange peels and pepper and bread dough. Hazy amber golden with thin lacing head. Medium body with medium carbonation. Starts fresh with bitter orange and yeasty bitterness, estery with sweet wheatiness. Mild Brett and pepper. Good sweet hit with alcoholic warming followed by a bit of farmhouse funk. Finish with lots of spice and pepper. Light bitter finish and mild chalky after.
Tried again from bottle courtesy of Naka (05/08/08). Upped the aroma score, otherwise, not much changed in my impressions from the first time. Good bière de garde.

750mL bottle. Poured clear amber with a large head. Aroma is perfume and yeasty, with pears and a honey-like sweetness. Taste of peppery spices, perfume and sweet malt. Medium body. Dry finish.

Bottle from Capone’s. Hazy deep gold pour with aroma of spicy florals, citrus, some funky pale malt notes, and mild apple. Complex aroma. Tastes pale malty, on the dry side, with floral hops, citrus, honey, and some funky fruity hints. Complex, vibrant, velvety palate, with a lot of back door complexity.

Rich gold body with fine hazy yeast, gentle carbonation, and a modest sudsy white head. Very nice grapey malt aroma with moderate caramel tones, warm bread crust and sweet nutty properties. Pleasing malt profile in the flavor with some notable alcohol, and emergent corky wood qualities. Semi-sweet, but some significant balancing bitterness comes into play in the finish, to the point of hinting at an Altbier. Medium, palatable body. This is a very nicely interpreted and elegant Bière de Garde.

Golden with reddish hints, coloudy, and a small white head. Flavor starts subdued, but a hint of sourness at the end was nice and true to its namesake

A lacey beer on tap at Port Carlsblad. Darker than the blond colour described., with a white head. A barleywine like taste, well malted that finishes sour. A sure cross-styler.

Bottle. Pours a hazy blonde look with decent size head that developed very nicely ring around the glass. Aroma is of yeast, golden raisins, pepinos, ripe grapes, and cucumbers. Flavor has a nice spiciness to it, mellow but complex. Decent carbonation. Would like to see this aged for another year or so. Delicious.

Bottled. Hazy amber coloured. Very yeasty aroma. The flavour is also very yeasty with some fruity notes. Quite sweet. Unpleasantly high carbonation level. Light to medium bodied. Typical bière de garde.