North By Northwest Guldenbiere
North by Northwest Restaurant & Brewery

Beer Geek Stats
From:
North by Northwest Restaurant & Brewery
 
Texas, United States
Style:
Belgian Pale Strong Ale
ABV:
8%
Score:
Needs more ratings
Avg:
3.3 | pDev: 20%
Reviews:
7
Ratings:
9
Status:
Retired
Rated:
Jun 04, 2012
Added:
Jun 21, 2006
Wants:
  0
Gots:
  0
No description / notes.
Recent ratings and reviews.
Ratings by assurbanipaul:
Photo of assurbanipaul
Reviewed by assurbanipaul from Texas

2.95/5  rDev -10.6%
look: 3 | smell: 3 | taste: 3 | feel: 2.5 | overall: 3
Pour is a clear straw pale gold with a fluffy white head that doesn't last. Aroma is light and grassy with some faint hops but rather plain and thin.

Taste is toasty pale malt with an obvious candy sugar sweetness. No obvious flaws but no real depth to it. No alcohol flavors or ABV listed but it doesn't impress me as too high.

Mouthfeel is light, almost thin, almost watery. No noticeable problems but a weak attempt at the style. Listed on the board as a Belgian strong ale but would fit better in a Belgian blonde ale style.
Nov 07, 2006
More User Ratings:
 
Rated: 2.25 by nmann08 from Virginia

Jun 04, 2012
 
Rated: 2.75 by ygtbsm94 from Utah

Jun 04, 2012
Photo of CharlesDarwin
Reviewed by CharlesDarwin from Rhode Island

4/5  rDev +21.2%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4
2006. Poured from a 750mL thanks to mj. Nice gentle pear and apple nectar aroma. Perfumy, with lavender, light pale malts, and white figs. Kick-ass sheets of fractured lacing rim the glass, over a straw-yellow, lightly hazed pour. Flavor rolls with gently spicy malts, intricate lychee, Asian pear, cucumber and almond. Bits of ginger. Light and refreshing. This is a fantastic use of yeast. Just stellar character. Finishes dry, yet fat and juicy with yeast and nips of hop candy. Great stuff.
Aug 07, 2008
Photo of Crosling
Reviewed by Crosling from Colorado

3.65/5  rDev +10.6%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.5
2007. Leftover GABF bottling. Very clear golden yellow color with a small, thin head. Smells very pure and belgian, with exotic spicing of coriander and ginger, as well as some hints of sweet light fruits. Not perfect, it's somewhat vegatal. Flavor has fairly nice balance with the spice and yeast character. Lots of coriander. It's a fairly nice ale.
Jul 08, 2008
Photo of HardTarget
Reviewed by HardTarget from Texas

3.66/5  rDev +10.9%
look: 2 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 3 | overall: 4
Bottle Inspection: 22 oz. brown bomber with a NXNW hang tag that states 7%, Belgian Golden Strong Ale, secondary fermentation, serving temperature suggestion (40-45), glassware suggestion “Belgian beer glass” which is a bit cryptic, and a storage recommendation “for up to two years at cellar temps”. It sat in my fridge for about 4 months. A pretty good tag, a brewing date stamped would be a nice touch though.

Appearance: Capped and corked, a very firm but smooth pull dislodged the cork without disturbing the noticeable sediment layer at the bottom. Despite this effort, the bottle slowly but inexorably started to gush resulting in the loss of about half the bottle and churning the sediment into every nook and cranny of the beer. After it settled for a while, it poured a hazy gold with a massive white fluffy meringue head that lasted longer than the glass did.

Aroma: Pleasant, not much “Belgian” going on, but mild fruity esters leaning toward pear and lime.

Flavor: Very mild overall, nothing funky, so I think the bottle was just a bit over primed, not infected. Again, mild fruit, well balanced base with mild earthy hops.

Mouthfeel: Firm carbonation, medium body.

Overall Impression: A pleasant beer, a shame about the gusher. I’d like to try it again.
Aug 27, 2007
Photo of Pegasus
Reviewed by Pegasus from Texas

3.03/5  rDev -8.2%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3 | taste: 3 | feel: 3 | overall: 3
Appearance: Hazy, light golden color, with a small white head, thick glass-coating lace, and slight carbonation.

Aroma: Sweet and spicy, with notable cinnamon, vanilla, and cloves.

Taste: Opens with pale malts and a sweet honey-like note, soon followed by a strong phenolic alcohol note, earthy flavors, and a lingering medicinal hop note at the finish.

Mouth feel: Smooth, soft, a bit thin, but pleasant.

Drinkability/notes: Seems a bit understated for the style, but pleasant, nonetheless.
Dec 10, 2006
Photo of briman
Reviewed by briman from Texas

2.92/5  rDev -11.5%
look: 2.5 | smell: 3 | taste: 3 | feel: 2.5 | overall: 3
Served from bottle into standard pint glass.

Pours a light hazy yellow straw color. Huge white head, which retains well, but this may be more of a result of being overly carbonated more than anything. The bottle basically overflowed as soon as I opened it. I tried to give it a gentle pour, but there is still a lot of stuff floating around in the glass.

Aroma is sweet, with honey and peppery spices.

Flavor starts out with sweet honey which carries you through all the way to a peppery spice finish. A faintly bitter hop note leads you into the aftertaste, but doesn't hang aroung long.

Medium body, high carbonation which too me seems a bit overdone. Pretty sweet, balance is ok but I don't honestly get much more of a cameo appearance by the hops. This beer is ok, it just doesn't deliver anything memorable enough to want to seek it out again.
Dec 10, 2006
Photo of Gueuzedude
Reviewed by Gueuzedude from Arizona

4.52/5  rDev +37%
look: 4 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4
This one was a slight gusher, as soon as I pulled the difficult-to-remove cork from this beer it started to foam up and over. Luckily I realized this and was able to get it into my glass before I spilled any beer. The head is pillowy and just barely off-white in color, it is initially three-fingers thick and is falling back into the beer with a rocky-textured surface. The beer itself is a lightly hazy, straw gold color, that shows an aggressive, though not overly so, level of carbonation by the streaming rivulets of bubbles rising up through my tulip glass. The aroma is pretty nice; I get initial sharp herbal notes which take on some softer notes of vanilla and clove. Honey-like malt aromatics add a touch of roundness to the spicy nose (notes of ginger and pepper are noticeable). Notes of tart green apples then follow, but there are also some grassy notes throughout. Towards the end a dry, toasted malt character is noticeable. Quite a nice, complex aroma.

Definitely amply carbonated, the beer gets quite fizzy as it hits my mouth. The ample carbonation had me worried about an infection, but the beer is pretty sweet and it seems like the brewer might have jumped the gun on bottling a beer with one of those finicky Belgian yeast strains. Sweet honey like notes lead the way, and a solid herbal character is also noticeable throughout. This beer actually strikes a pretty good balance between sweet malt notes and herbal / spicy fermentation and hop characters. The finish has a sharp, spicy note to it that is a combination of higher alcohols, lightly noticeable hop bitterness and an astringent, lingeringly, herbal note that I can't quite place in origin, but is not at all unpleasant. The sweet honey note rides throughout this beer, and it is almost as if a herbal honey were used to make this beer (I don't think any honey was used but that is what the combination of flavors makes me think of). There is a light acidity here as well, that seems to be played up by a light citrus note, or perhaps it is the product of the citrus note.

This beer, while sweet, still has a nice easy drinking quality to it. The sweetness never becomes cloying or heavy; I think that both the alcohol and the carbonation help to keep this beer an easy drinking proposition, which can definitely be dangerous with a 750ml bottle of higher alcohol brew. As the beer warms up and loses some carbonation, it begins to pick up a bit of creaminess to the body. I am actually quite impressed, I was not expecting much after sampling their bottled, slightly infected IPA, but this is damn good. If the beer tastes like this consistently, I would actually take this over Duvel any day. Ultimately the mix of flavors in this beer is just outstanding! Get some if you can.
Jun 21, 2006
North By Northwest Guldenbiere from North by Northwest Restaurant & Brewery
Beer rating: 3.3 out of 5 with 9 ratings