Lost Abbey Veritas 002

Formerly brewed at Port Brewing/Lost Abbey
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
San Marcos, California USA

Serve in Trappist glass, Tulip, Tumbler

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Draught (?!!) No head over deep-red, Cola-like colour. Absolutely stunning nose of wine, cherries, grapes, fresh garden herbs. Cherries, sherry, Madeira, game sauce; vinous as no other; yet delicate and complex as none. Somehow as enhanced with Ve-Tsin. Slick, viscous, alcoholburn, and -warming. Perfect balance sweet-sour (and even salty as with the Ve-Tsin?). My new Tomme Arthur favourite. Stunning. This is, BTW, THE beer for game with cranberries. Forget about wine.

Draught at Lost Abbey
Burgundy colour with hints of brown. Gorgeous, gorgeous aroma - deeply vinous and complex with blackcurrant, pinot noir, oak and subtle florals. Full mouthfeel shows evidence of meady oiliness. Winelike and oaky, with woody accents, crazy rich fruitiness and a big depth of malty tang. Long, dry finish. You’ve got to be kidding me.

Draught @ brewery and one of its highlights. Warm dark brown/burgundy color with some initial suds but not much of a head. Low co2. Bretty, boozy, barrelly aroma you can get lost in. Sour cherry yields to mellow wood and infinite complexity that includes occasional kisses of chocolate and wine. Clean, dry finish and a wonderful melange of sour, fruit, and dryness.

Stone Sour Fest 09. So happy to have been able to try. Beautiful red/brown color. Great nose, slightly funky, some tart & sour, also dark cherries, light plums other dark fruits. Very well balanced between funk, tart, and fruit. Smooth smooth smooth. Might not be the best for folks who like their sours more strident, but this worked really well for me. Think it’s aged beautifully. A wonderful treat.

UPDATED: JAN 10, 2008 Sampled at GABF. This was my second sample to Cable Car. pours brownish with a tan head. Aroma of dark fruit and alcohol. Flavors much the same.

On tap at port. Dark brown with no head. Sour apple and lemon aroma. Bright acidic palate. Sweet and sour green apple and lemon taste with a slightly sticky palate and a tart finish.

Tasted at the Angels’ Share release, rating from memory since it looks like, sadly, there’s little chance of tasting it again. Brown beer with a small head, who cares what it looked like, the smell is the thing, sour and fruity, sweet like ruby port, tart like currant juice, like fresh berries and fermented fruit at the same time, like good sangria made with berries but not too citrusy, also chocolatey but not overwhelmingly so, sweet toasty malt and just a little bread, not really a strong Belgian yeast character, the Avant Garde is the most subdued in the aroma, can’t really say I got much funk in the smell. The taste is a beautiful sweet-sour-smooth-roasty-chocolate covered cherry mix. Not at all sticky or cloying, the sourness is more complex in the taste than the smell, some bitter and slightly funky notes. The mouthfeel is very smooth and rich but not at all heavy. A truly amazing beer that I wish I could get more of. Thanks for making this one Tomme.

UPDATED: OCT 13, 2007 Poured a murky, purple brown color with a small, light tan head that left nice lacing on the glass. Aroma of dried fruits, sour cherries, toffee, light roasted malts, leather, vanilla, and brett. Taste of light chocolate, caramel malts, sour cherries, with a bit of sweet, raspberry, and a moderate sourness from the brett. Digging this one big time, the brett presence was about perfect. Thanks Mike!

GABF 2007. Opaque black brown in the glass. One sniff is a smörgåsbord: sugary fire wood, musk, a little brett, saw dust, sugar cane, nutmeg, and a wine barrel. Dope. Flavor: wow. So flavorful. Woodsy through the middle with a nice acidic floor, the acid gliding over the top, not hitting underneath like a guezue; the finish is fruity, with sour apple and yeast, but the wood and barrel qualities are still there as an accent. Perfect balance between juiciness and drier barrel aspects. Maybe my favorite Lost Abbey beer at the fest (and that includes Cable Car); it’s a close call at least.

This was truley a treasure to have and I will probably never sample this again to my dismay. Samples at the Angel’s Share Release 11/10/07. They were only supposed to serve samples of this but I convinced Gina to let me have a pint of it since I came from South Carolina! Pours out a dark muddy brown with a few bubbles here and there but no real noteworthy head. What came next was amazing THE SMELL. Imagine a blend of raspberries, honey, chocolate, and just enough tartness to round out the sweetness. Add on top of that, the unmistakable smell of a decent farmhouse ale and there you have Veritas. One sip surrounds you with flavors! Dark berries crash with a bar of chocolate and a dry tartness that can’t be beat. THEN you get the full oak flavor from the barrel.... a godly beer. This beer is genius, pure genius. A taste and smell that is unmatched with the biere de garde, raspberry mead, and barrel aged stout all in ONE! They need to bottle this quick!