New Belgium La Folie

Brewed by New Belgium Brewing Company
Style: Sour Ale
Fort Collins, Colorado USA

It is difficult to rate unique beers like this. I had it on tap at the brewery. The flavor was mostly sour apple, lime juice, maybe a little vinegar.

Following the pop of the champagne cork a mist of condensation rises out of the bottle. This gives the effect that I’m about to embark on a trip with a magic elixir. The head puffs up huge: 2-3 inches of a brownish creme. This falls off to a thin 2 millimeter head after about five minutes. After the pour the head is made up of micro and macro foam with big bubbles popping on the surface causing a mashed potatoes effect. The beer itself is a amberish brown. It is dark enough to not allow any light to pass through even when held up to a light. This is what a beer should look like. It’s killing me that I have to write this first before tearing into this absolutely gorgeous brew.

The aroma is a fantastic tangy sweet breath of refreshment. It smells extremely flavorful while staying light. Behind the tangy sweetness I’m catching a touch of walnut shell. Nutty almost.

The first sip is sharp and lightly cutting. But in a fantastic way. This is a very sour beer. It is very similar to kombucha tea. Or like the vinegar chugalug that grandparents in Pennsylvania drink for their health (with the exception that this beer is delicious). The taste is sharp enough to almost give the back of my throat a cold-headache-like feeling. The sour and sharpness is nicely balanced out with a sweetness that is not completely unlike fruit. Breathing out through the mouth after a swallow brings on the barest hint of smoke. Similar to peat burning in scotch production. The breath out also brings on a touch of bark in a moist forest.

The palate is very thin. The thinness adds to the refreshing effect of this beer. Like lemonade on a summer day. You can feel the tiny bubbles of the carbonation almost as a bite on the tongue and back of the throat.

Overall this is a great beer. One of my favorites. It takes beer down such a rarely traveled path and does it with style. It is hand bottled out of one of the first bottling set-ups that new belgium ever owned (only six bottles at a time). This is just one of the signs of the love and time that went into this beer.

#900 750ml Bottle #9067 Sep 07 Pours out an amber topped with almost no head. Aroma of very nice fruit. Tast it gets you in the jaw on the first tast. Dry, sour and very nice. WOW thanks a ton Indiana_Red for letting me have some of this on another mile stone.

Bottle (9067) - thanks Ken! Chestnut brown pour with a smaller, dense beige head. Sweet and tart, woody sour tones. Big impact upon first taste. Lots of sour intensity. Like a magnum sweet tart. Light oaky tones. What a treat!

750ml bottle. This is the best sour beer that I’ve had to date... I said that about RR Compunction too, but La Folie has more flavor. Pours a dark brown color with ruby red highlights. Crisp offwhite head that fades quick and leaves no lace. Smells a touch sour, ripe malts and sour cherries. This is one of the most sour tasting beers that I’ve had, it’s great! Some mellow oak notes but nothing major. Lots of sour cherry flavor. Medium body, crisp, super pucker sour. Very active carbonation.

A wonderful, sour beer that finishes beautifully with the addition of champaigne bubbles.

on tap @ papago... pours a hazy dark brown with red tints. it’s topped with an aggressively forming tan head that rapidly disappears. tart aroma with some malty sweetness, fresh cherries, wood and some grassiness. the palate has little sweetness on it. flavors of wood, fruit (blackberry, red cherry, lemon zest), grain and a grassy/herbal bite. very dry finish which continues to parch. medium to full bodied for the style with a nice smooth texture. sharpness makes it really easy to drink at a hefty price from the taps... re rate from bottle coming soon.7/4/8/4/18=4.1

from 2007 bottle #1938 courtesy of rollinhard... intense aroma of blood... minerals and iron, wood, sour cherry, earth and a light saltiness. much more robust palate and sourness than on tap. the flavors are all there just amped up... now, to get some more... 9/4/9/5/19=4.6

new keg at papago... something has changed drastically. it has become more like the bottled version in depth of aroma and flavor. everything has been turned up... the malt sweetness and the counterbalancing sourness especially. herbal dryness really cleans the whole thing up. THIS is what i want drink everyday...10/4/10/5/19/4.8

sweet jeebus... growler from late 2008 batch=the best soured beer i’ve ever had... 5.0

467-12, 520. I’ve been looking forward to this out of the bottle for about a year now. Popping the cork released a apple cider vinegar aroma that reminds me of my first la folie. I thought there was something wrong with my beer. I’ve since come to love sour ales and for me this is the standard. Poured a lively 3 finger head that aggressively burned out. More aroma of damp wood and cherries with the vinegar. Cloudy brown with strokes of orange with a light sandy brown head. Seductively tart; pie cherries, lemon peel, with a soft embrace. Sour notes stay on my lips with a tingle while the swallow finishes dry on the back of my throat. I’m already looking forward to my next one.