New Belgium Lips of Faith (Erics Sour Peach Ale)

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

On tap at the Falling Rock as part of the GABF 06 festivities. I don’t really know what to think of this beer. I didn’t find it to me particularly tart. I didn’t not pick up any peach character at all. I guess it was a fine beer. It just isn’t what they said it would be.

RERATE: On tap at NBB brewhouse 2 while talking with Peter Bouckaert on 9/26/2006 - Still a beautiful beer, I appreciate it even more now. Seems to have a more sour character than before, and it is even better than it was... This is beer art. This beer inspires me. // ORIGINAL RATE: A couple of pints on tap at the brewery with alaskanwarren at the AHA membership drive (found my tasting notes after 6 long months!). Beer pours with the beautiful color and glow of clover honey with a touch of rustcolor mixed in, a clear low carbonation. The aroma contains honey, tartness/acidity, heather, and some peachy goodness. A soft caressing sweetness and tartness, balanced beautifully. Peachy with green-apple crispness and honey puts a smile on my face. More approachable that the also-fantastic Le Terroir. How good was it? I wish I had a keg or three. Please brew it again! Probably my favorite effort from New Belgium brewery. Eric Salazar has my thanks!

8/16/06 on draught at Papago: Pours to a light golden yellow body, slightly hazy though not at all opaque, with a small white head that quickly fades to a small ring around the glass. The aroma suggests peach, light honey, and a generous dose of the La Folie sourness. The flavor is very sour, maybe more so than I was expecting - more sour than say Lindemans but certainly less than Cantillon. It shows some fresh, ripe peach, sour peach, honey, sour, vinegar-like pale La Folie base. Moderate-medium carbonated, medium bodied (though it certainly felt very effervescent & feathery in the mouth). Finishes with plenty of sourness though it lacks that peeling-the-enamel-off-your-teeth feeling of Cantillon (which I realize it’s not trying to be). Overall a very interesting beer to taste. I hope New Belgium continues to experiment along this line of sour beers.

pours golden-orange with small white head. aroma is somewhat small, peaches and sour malt. flavor is sour, almost lambic levels. flavor is peaches dominant. mouthfeel is nice and dry. finish is not that long but interesting.

A one time release that was available on draft at Papago Brewing. The beer is a light golden color SUPER SOUR ale. One glass will make you pucker for days. It has a hint of peach in it but the sourness overpowers all the flavor of the beer.

[Portland International Beer Festival – Tap] A copper colored brew with the aroma of a sour apple. The flavor will knock you down. It was sour and wow full of life. This was not your ordinary brew for the common man. This was a sipping sour brew with a kick that would send you screaming into the night. It was a great experimental brew and I hope to give this to all my novice friends for a try into the dark side of beer drinking.

With timorous eyes and cautious steps I slowly approached the Denver mecca of beer. It was a cozy sanctuary for clerics of the order of gourmet, an offset alcove where lost souls could gather to the light and drop anchor (and wallet) for a pint of comfort. It was, that evening, a meeting place. A lanky neophyte to finer beer had called to tell me he would be in town, and would love to have a beer outing with myself and his theater-centric father. I’m always game for good company, so much the better if good beer is present, but only the former is essential; the latter is a decorous extra. I did have another motive for going. The diligent eyes, ears and tongues of the online community had caught sight of the newest ambrosia from the New Belgium vats: a peach lambic known by the curiously simple appellation “Eric’s Ale”. If the cost was hefty, the drink more than compensated by being light and delicate. At $4.50 for half a pint I’d expect nothing less. The bartender was even kind enough to supplement the elegance of Eric’s Ale by serving it in a wine glass. It sat squarely in the rounded glass, emanating a worn dandelion yellow light that shone up and out through a headless, haloed top. Also coming from the anterior of the luminescent beer’s cranium is a subtle waft of peaches, apricots, maple syrup, confectioner’s sugar, apricot preserves and the distinct La Folie vinegar base; a veritable orchard of fruits and sweets. A small drink expounds another cornucopia of uplifting flavors including an eminent peach, followed by clover honey, the same La Folie vinegar sourness. It then collapses into a degenerative pool of hops and alcohol - surprisingly coarse but not so pressing that it makes you forget the intertwined flavors prior to the degeneration. Though I may indulge in extreme description, all parts of Eric’s Ale are quiet and somewhat suppressed. The grandiose buckets of fruits are actually very mild mannered, and its nadir of hops and ethanol equally modest. A friend asked me to compare La Folie and Eric’s Ale, which, at first was a tempting question. They were of the same stock, as it were, but were entirely different beers in taste and feel. If you can, avoid the temptation of relating those two beers two closely. Eric’s Ale is a separate entity, one worthy of its own set of notes and reviews. And one worthy of drinking with a good friend and his father in a top notch tap house.

Not usually a fan of this style, but this was quite tasty. Fresh fruit aroma, tastes of tart lemons, granny smith apples, and fresh peach pie crust, with just a hint of caramlezied sugar on top. Delicious, if you arein the mood for something slightly sour, but really tasty and unique