Zoetzuur Flemish Reserve Ale

Brewed by De Proefbrouwerij
Style: Sour Ale
Lochristi, Belgium

750ML purchased for $8. Pours red with a small ring of pinkish bubbles. Smells of cherry pits, resudual sugar, tarte. Tastes tarte with cherries and some sugary hints dominating. Not as sour as Rodenbach, but good.

Pours out a carmel brown with no head. Smells is sweet and funky. Taste is sweet candy with a slight sour finish. The funky De Proef yeast is present. Not the best in style. However pretty tasty overall.

750ml bottle $9.99. Nice red color with almost no head. It smells great, cherries, sour some muddy vinegar. The taste is indeed sweet-sour but leans toward neither side. It is just barely sweet and barely sour, good balance. Nice cherry note, reminds me a tad of Jolly Pumpkin biere de mars. This was money well spent. Serving type: bottle Reviewed on: 08-29-2008 02:26:19

Pours a dark and ruddy looking reddish mauve color. A consistent, foamy, light tan settles to a small rim, delicate, sticky lacing marking the glass. The nose gives alot of oak and vanilla overtones to a bed of tart cherries and dark fruit, with lactic yeast and hints of brown sugar malt. Flavors continue this pursuit, lightly tart from the cherry, but well balanced and soft overall from the sweet dark malts and the easy going barrel influence. Lactose plays a big role, as it always seems to in this style, but there seems to be some acidity lacking as it never delivers that "kick" to the underneath of the tongue that the best examples of the style do. Medium bodied and perhaps just a hair overly carbonated, the mouthfeel is otherwise quite nice. Very solid beer, but far from elite within the genre.

750ml bottle at Novare Res. Pours a dark hazy reddish brown. Tart aroma, with funk, fruitiness, and oak notes. Flavor is sweet fruity, with a nice balance of tartness. My general impression of this beer was unfavorable mostly due to the fact that I had a Panil before it, which was leaps and bounds better. This just didnt stack up all that well. Mostly just for balance reasons, it’s not as mature a beer as I’d hoped.

Bottle. [thank you, after4ever]
Pours a great red, slightly brownish. But it is bordering on kriek colur. Great, frothy, off-white head with super duration. Sweet sugary aroma, brownish malts, light tartness, raspberries, strawberries and plums. Highish carbonation, dry mouthfeel with limited fullness. Flavour is a bit weak compared to the aroma. Tarness and wet malts at first, then sugary sweetness before a fine, dry, fruitiness in the aftertaste. With strawberries and raspberries. Fine and really refreshing.

Pour: 750 mL bottle to La Chouffe tulip. Rusty brown color, sort of like raspberry preserves. One finger of beige head fizzes to a fluffy halo and leaves some nice lacing. Nose: Brown sugar sweetness peeks through a shroud of tart cherries and fruitcake. There’s a very slight earthiness too. Mouth: If the aroma translated exactly over to the flavor this beer would be world class, but it doesn’t quite. Seems a little thin and fizzy on the palate, leading to unsupported flavors. What I can taste is lightly tart with black cherries and a trademark bretty earthiness in the finish. What’s missing is the malt/ester sweetness dueling with the vinegary sharpness that I get from Duchesse or La Folie when I consider the stylistic pinnacle. Not bad but definitely a tier below the best.

A very sharp, acidic red with a delicioius malt backbone. Smells like sour cherries, once again, but has a less musty and muddled aroma, much more tart, and the flavor is cleaner, not musty, but definitely bretty. Hints of oak, raisins, plums and sour fruit. Very dry, almost astringent.