Soured Avant Garde - The Lost Abbey

HopHead84

California

4.43/5  rDev +3.3%
look: 4 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.5

4/16/2012

A: Dark orange and still with perfect clarity. Great color.

S: Strong cheese presence with lemon, apple, pear, and pervasive barnyard notes. The faintest whisper of acetone meets mild acetic notes, a moderate tartness, and evident leather. Oak is restrained.

T: Salty and cheesy with a firm citric acidity and insistent horsey notes. Lower moderate acetic presence with traces of oak and earth. The beer is moderately tart. Fruit is light, reminiscent of lemon and apple. The finish is piquant and lightly lactic.

M: Lower medium body with a sticky, tannic, and dry mouthfeel with a robust citric acidity.

Overall: Reminiscent of a quality two year unblended lambic. Incidentally, I think this particular barrel was two years old. Great. #206

Serving type: cask

04-17-2012 03:50:39 | More by HopHead84

Sixofsigmas

California

4.78/5  rDev +11.4%
look: 4.5 | smell: 5 | taste: 5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.5

Gained access to this through well let's say extreme luck...

It pours a medium brown with not a whole lot of head.

Smells wonderfully of just funk and sour. Some barnyard... some vinegar, very fruity and full of stink. Very indicative of what might be in the taste.

The front is almost from another style most likely remnants of Avant Garde in its regular form. There is some caramel and toast on the front...followed quickly by a puckering sour that calls out apples, lemon, grapefruit, vinegar... It's pretty amazing. It's tart and sour and delicious!

Mouth is light and breezy...relatively thin and the sour lingers.

Overall an amazing beer. If you have access to it I highly recommend it. I was sharing a bottle with a friend, but I think I could have finished it alone.... and still been wanting.

Serving type: bottle

10-12-2011 07:28:25 | More by Sixofsigmas

nickd717

California

3.68/5  rDev -14.2%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 3 | overall: 3.5

From the barrel (or a carafe, which got it from the barrel really) at the Lost Abbey Barrel Tasting 2009. Added this beer under this name because that's how it is listed in Tomme from Lost Abbey's blog post about the event. The tasting card I got at the event said "Avant Garde Barrel #199." Anyway, this was considerably different from regular Avant Garde. I know some people will say, "Oooh, it's sour!" and automatically give it crazy good ratings. I don't get that mentality, and this is a case where the souring made it a worse beer, as souring often can (there, I said it!). Ok, rant over.

This beer poured from the carafe a slightly hazy medium brown color with no head or lacing.

Aroma is a lemony funky tartness, caramel, spice, and sour apple.

Flavor is caramel malt, acetic acid tartness, green apple, bread, and spice. Some white wine in there too. You know, it definitely wasn't bad at all, but I did like regular Avant Garde considerably better.

The beer was absolutely flat on the palate, but since it came from the barrel I'll give them a pass on that. Medium body.

Drinkability was average, maybe a little better.

Serving type: cask

11-13-2009 17:03:37 | More by nickd717