New Glarus R & D Golden Ale

Brewed by New Glarus Brewing Company
Style: Sour Ale/Wild Ale
New Glarus, Wisconsin USA

Serve in Snifter, Tulip, Tumbler

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Courtesy of markwise. Pours deep gold with a touch of haze and nice looking off white head. The aroma is lemon, orange peel, grapefruit skin, fresh cut grass, a touch of grains and floral hops. Lots going on in the aroma. The taste is similar and pretty bright with lemon acidity, some orange peel and grapefruit, grassy meadow, graininess and some floral hops. It ends thin and watery and mildly refreshing.

bottle, thanks to mar, hazy yellow with lasting white foam, aroma of sweet fruit and white pepper, flavor is nice blend of fruit and yeast , some perfume, lilac,with chalky hop bitterness

UPDATED: JUL 18, 2011 500mL sampled at Shenandoah Throwdown. Pours an excellent cloudy, deep yellow with a lively, thick white head. Good lace. Aroma is slight Bretty, a bit funky/horsey, mostly doughy malt, slight pepper. Taste is a bit lactic, white wine, lemon, tart. Pretty interesting. 6/28/2010 7/4/7/4/13=3.5

500mL thanks to Travlr. The pour is a cloudy orange with a medium, white head. Bit cedar nose with floral Brett and resinous wood. Taste is dry, bitter, cedar wood heavy with massive Brett presence akin to Orval. Heavy dough and rich honey wheat bread come in for balance and body. Less soft and less integrated compared to Westy Blond, but just comparing this to Orval and Westy Blond should tell you this is quite a winner for Bretty blond ale. 7/17/2011 8/4/7/4/15=3.8

500ml bottle shared with blankboy and garthicus, via trade with JCapriotti. Hazy gold, average off-white frothy head. Smells great - dry Brett, peach, fresh-cut roses - simple, elegant. Taste - yep, like a fruitier Orval, dry, pungently floral, modestly alcoholic, really well balanced - man, oh man this is nice! Average body, perfect carbonation, dry, with a longish pungent floral bitter finish. Fantastic stuff, thanks, Jason!!

Bottle at the Where the Wild Beers are event. Pours a lightly hazy golden amber with a thin white head. Clean acid and lemon. Thin, very bretty. Finishes dry and with some light brett and lemon.

In short: America’s answer to Orval. Wicked beer.
How: Bottle 500ml. Sent to me by CaptainCougar. Thank you so much Tom. Consumed early febuary 2010 relatively fresh, about 6 to 7 months after bottling date
The look: Partly cloudy golden body topped by an enormous white head with good retention
In long: Nose is extremely but has a lot more to offer than traditional brett bombs. Here it is has floral as it is wild. Already an Orval feature. Taste sends you a truckload of brett but quickly draws your attention away with all those floral hops, grapefruits notes, pine, Social Tea™ cookies, dust. Also a strong scented cedar sensation (is this beer cedar aged?!?). Very Orval-esque although I got less of a “flower bouquet” sensation than with Orval. The hop profile here is less bitter but more citric/astringent and more fruity than with Orval. Overall rather dry. Big spongy body, smooth but lively carbonation. There is many many differences between this beer and Orval, yet I cannot help but to compare them. If you love Orval (the indisputably most better best beer in the world) then you will love this beer. A whole new twist on the Orval approach. It is exactly Orval, but totally different. However something about its more fruity yeast character and hops makes me think it cannot age like Orval. But when fresh (I’d say 1 year or less) this is almost as great as Orval. What all these Sours, Imperial whatever and BA this-and-that what I really want is more beer like this. And peace on Earth. As long as the latter doesn’t prevent the former

Bottle. Pours a golden body with a white head. Cheesy and floral hop tones, mild earth with a strong prickly carbonation. Mild brett and leather dryness. A floral Parmesan waring, very nice.

courtesy of markwise pours golden, white head aroma of brett, medicinal-chemical tart nose flavor, brett, some yeast, bitter citrus hops/pine, light pale malt finish. Not my fav NG beers.

Big funky poopy bretty nose on this one. Tons of brett, dry dust, bread/biscuit, light sweetness, hint of grass. Pours golden with a huge creamy head that settles. Flavors are strongly bretty and poopy, light dry dust and sweetness, hints of bread. More lingering funky bretty. Chewy funk almost. Really solid showcase for the brett and what its flavor and aroma profile can do. Really nice stuff.

Bottle and served in my Orval glass: Golden hue with a fading fizzy head and no lace. The aroma has notes of band-aid, solvent, sweat, apple, pale biscuity malt, and flowers. The taste is bland pale malts with butter cream, some acidic fruits, bitter but flushed out hops, mineral water, wood bark, light twangy fruits and grains of paradise. The mouth feel is equally underdeveloped, soft, flat, and watery, let me repeat this WATERY, honestly WTF. This is without a doubt the most disappointing beer I had in 2009, It ain’t Orval nor is it a worth even half what I paid for it, seems like a second running of a basic Belgian Ale. Following the disaster that was Old English Porter, I am really having my doubts about the new beers produced by New Glarus. I have lessened my expectations of the Cran-Lambic because of this.