Page 24 Réserve Hildegarde Ambrée
Brasserie Saint-Germain

Aug. 2010: 750 ml swingtop bottle, from Vinmonopolet, nettbutikken. ABV is 6.9%. Deep golden to amber colour, big to moderate white (or slightly off-white) head. Spicy and herbal aroma, hints of flowers and honey too. The flavour is fairly sweet and malty with caramel and moderate hops, hints of honey, the alcohol is noticeable. Lacks the crisp freshness of the Hildegarde Blonde.

 

 

 

Dark amber color with beige head. Aroma is mostly sweet, malty and sugary with some dried fruits on top. Taste is malty but not as sweet as expected. There is some earthy bitterness as well. Yeast esters and dried fruits complete the picture. Medium body with medium to high effervescence. Not a huge fan of the style but this beer is quite well executed.

A 750ml bottle picked up in Cassell, Northern France last year. Pours a dark cloudy amber colour with a foamy white head that sticks around. Aromas of toffee, caramel, biscuit & malt. Tastes of caramel, bread, earth, oak, toffee, biscuit & clove, leading to a malty caramel bready mix in the finish. Very tasty.

Smooth for an ambree, nice brown color, one finger head remains throughout. Aroma of dried fruit, taste of anise, pineapple, caramel. Delicious and well executed!

 

 

 

Pours a dark red-orange, clear, with thick cream colored head, sheet of delicate lace halfway down the glass. Smell: toasted bread, caramel, overripe peach, lightly herbal with a sweet vanilla-ish note. Taste: caramel, raisin bread, overripe pear and nectarine, herbal, mildly earthy and oaky, with a note of clove; more earth and sugared ripe stone fruit in the finish. Very tasty.

 

 

 

A: The beer is clear dark amber in color (brown when viewed from afar) and has a moderate amount of visible carbonation. It poured with a quarter finger high off white head that died down, leaving a large patch of bubbles in the center of the glass and a collar around the edge.
S: Light to moderate aromas of fruity yeast—apples seem to stand out in particular—are present in the nose along with some hints of toasted malts.
T: The taste mostly follows the smell, except that the malty flavors are a bit stronger and there are also some hints of earthiness.
M: It feels light- to medium-bodied on the palate and has a moderate amount of carbonation.
O: This beer is very easy to drink and seems like it would make a good accompaniment to a meal because it doesn't have any dominant aromas or flavors that would overpower food.

 

750ml swing-top bottle, made with all-French ingredients, including the hops, and according to multiple mentions on the label, especially the hops.

This beer pours a glassy medium orange-tinted amber hue, with two beefy fingers of puffy, foamy off-white head, which leaves some prominent rising steam lace around the glass as it evenly and steadily abates.

It smells of musty, kind of biscuity caramel malt, musky apple, green banana, mildly funky yeast, soft white pepper, indeterminate savory spice, but probably clove in one of its many changeling forms, and dry leafy hops. The taste is semi-sweet biscuity, bready caramel/toffee malt, some banal, but at the same time agreeable table-top fruit salad notes, a bit of filtered ash, tame green, organic yeast, soaked, grainy wood, and musty, leafy, earthy hops.

The carbonation is rather sedate, the bubbles small and mostly unnoticeable, the body a stodgy medium weight, and generally smooth, a slight, innocuous, grainy edge burbling up from time to time. It finishes on the sweet side, the caramel and bready malts persisting, amongst some softly lilting noble hops.

An enjoyable quaff, the high-brow, low-intensity caramelized malt and old-world subdued mustiness doing well to present a united front, with further subtly provided by a seemingly osmotic channel to the je ne sais quoi hops. Good stuff, the hallow fields of Flanders evident in every sip, which turn too often into a not so gentlemanly gulp. Sante!

(Served in a chalice)

A- This beer pours a clear dense toffee brown color with a thick sticky beige head and a quick carbonation of tiny bubbles bursting up to the head.

S- The blend of dried wood and toasted biscuit malt give a nice smooth character to the aroma

T- The wet old wood and dried fruit flavors give way to a carbonic acid flavor and a touch of sweet toffee linger in the finish. There is a green wood hint in the after taste that might be hops.

M- The medium mouthfeel has a gentle fizz and no real alcohol heat.

O- This beer has some nice old ale characteristics. A good blended flavor with hints of dried fruit and wood and some good malt flavors in there aswell.

 

75 cl brown glass swingtop bottle into Weihenstephaner weissbier glass in Brussels, Belgium. Reviewed live.

A: Five finger head of no cream, decent thickness, and good retention. Nontransparent gold colour.

Sm: Blandish generic hops. A light scent. Sorry lads; that's all me broken nose can pick up.

T: Amber hops, caramelized malt, and some unfermented sugar. Rather simple, poorly built, and not very balanced. I wish it were complex and bold. Not very hoppy.

Mf: Pretty coarse and dry for the style, but overall smooth and wet (just TOO coarse and dry). Doesn't complement the flavours of the body.

Dr: Relatively high ABV, not very drinkable, and low quality for the price. This is one to avoid. Serve cold.