Madame Rose - Goose Island Beer Co.

TheBrewo

Michigan

4.15/5  rDev -0.2%
look: 4 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 4.5

We pour a (2012 vintage) dark, brownish ruby brew. It holds a one and a half finger head of creamy tan bubbles. This shows okay retention (but is easily reproducible), leaving spots and legs of lacing down the glass. Aggregates of bubbles remains bubbling away towards one side of each glass. Carbonation appears active, while a thick haze with specks of sediment percolates the liquid. The aroma shows big metallics and soured Brett, giving a vinegar air at first. This eventually cools down, leaving more room for lightly toasted caramel malts, strong oakiness of red wine, soured cherry mash, and an additional sour saltiness of black olives. The final warmth brings light vinyls and leathers, sticky pine, light booze, and more musky spice of mossed wood. Our first impression is that the sourness mixes to a complex peak, with any cherry sweetness being subtle and pushed far to the back. As we sip, strong Brett sourness becomes apparent right from the start, mixing with the sharp metallic bite of grain, smoother brown malts, and a fresh lemon juice pucker. Florals, grassiness, and barnyard funk work in as well, adding depth and dryness to the grain and initial sourness. The middle peaks with that subtle sweetness of fermented cherries and red wine tannins. This gives a juiciness and fruitiness to starkly contrast against the dryness of that same grain, wine, and oakiness. The end quickly returns to its sour, musky roots, giving strong acidic sourness of Brett. The cherry also returns, but with a bittered, chokecherry greenness and astringency. The final wash is of paler grain, Brett, mineral, herbal sourness, lemon bite, and the clean dryness of red wine. The aftertaste breathes of soured oak, mouth-watering Brett, pale malts, soured cherries, those aromatic olives from the nose, big musk, mineral, stone, and citric rind. The body is light to medium, while the carbonation is medium. There is nice slurp, smack, and pucker, with lighter cream or froth to the lip. The mouth is lightly coated and left sopping wet, with an eventual final dryness of light oaky astringency. The abv is appropriate, and while this one is a sipper, it has great drinkability.

Overall, what we like best about this brew was how smooth it drank for how sour of a punch it packs. You could drink this all day, unlike many of the style which may kill your palate and become a bit much by the end of a serving. This guy keeps things fresh and smooth to the end, with robust sourness to the nose and taste, but without going overboard. In that same vein, the cherry flavoring gave only mild sweetness to the back of this beer. This was both good and bad, as we wish that it had a bit more of that advertised flavor, but are thankful that they didn’t overdo it, overpowering the otherwise excellent flavoring.

Serving type: bottle

12-23-2012 14:38:03 | More by TheBrewo

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