Verhaeghe Duchesse De Bourgogne

Brewed by Verhaeghe
Style: Sour Ale
Vichte, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium

Pours a clear rubyt body with an off-white head, small lacing. Aroma is medium sweet, sour cherry, vinegar and oak. Flavor is medium sweet, cherry, some sourness and ther oak is less pronounced. Light-medium body, small carbonation. Sticky texture, long sour finish. Really a very nice beer.

Too much like a carbonated dessert wine for me. Tart cherry. Good if I was in the mood for something other than beer. Would give me a tummy ache, like malt beverages (a la Smirnoff). Eww.

33cl bottle. Deep red-brown with a small head that leaves a film after a few minutes. The aroma is definitely acidic, with a sweet caramel element under sour grapes, with some wet wood thrown in. The flavor reminds me of grape juice mixed with cherry juice; goes from sour to sweet, then a little vinegar. Slippery and oily body with soft carbonation. My first flemish sour, and its pretty much what i expected, but maybe a little fruitier. Interesting and kinda nice, but I don’t think that I could drink a lot of it.

Pours a dark amber brown with burgundy edges. Beautiful aroma of oak, cherry, vanilla and sour tartness. The combination of the two aged brown ales provides this beer with a perfect smooth balance that is not to sweet and not to tart. Hints of oak, vanilla, grape, cherry, sugar and sourness.

Big thanks to the Oldsmar Tap House owner Tony for loading me up with a very healthy sampling of this beer as its first pour after being tapped. Pours deep crystal clear copper to amber-ish with lasting tan head and cobweb lacing. Looks like an impressive beer. The aroma is just plain ole’ big with even sourness across the top and nearly chalky. Those notes are backed up by vinegar and faint dark fruitiness. The taste doesn’t initially come across as sour as the aroma may lead one to believe. It starts with sweet grape juice along with mild sourness and faint vegetable-ness. The overall taste does remain sweeter than sour with a growing balsamic vinegar note that seems to account for the bulk of the sourness into the finish. Interesting. A bit more age could help the flavors to meld some

Like the other sour ales I have tried, Duchesse de Bourgogne would be better served on a salad than in a glass. That said, this was a very smooth ale. While I do not enjoy sour ales, this one is drinkable.

Bitter and sweet, with many berry-fruit tones. Aged in oak barrels, which gives it a good rich flavor.

Bottle. Rich, sweet and sour, fruity nose, predominantly cherry along with other berry-type fruits. Flavor continues with nice sour accents, as per the style of beer, but also more waves of sweet and semi-tart fruit, again dominated by cherries, but opening up to darker fruits as well. Oak creeps in, but is definitely (and appreciably) in the background to all that rich fruitiness. For a beer that some refer to as their guilty pleasure, I didn’t find anything in it to feel guilty about.