Ex Cathedra
The Lost Abbey - The Tasting Room

Unique warm spices like cardamon and nutmeg. Awesome with a touch of chocolate, vanilla, little sweet pie. Amazing beer

 

 

Poured from a cork'n'cage bottle into a Dogfish Head tulip

L: Murky dark mahogany brown pour with thin/barely there fizzy off-white head. No lacing.

S: Sweet and rich. Booze, spice, and candy.

T.F: Just like it smells. Sweet and boozy. Lots of caramel and molasses. Toffee, licorice, vanilla, and booze. Leather and oak... not picking up much of the orange peel. Maybe a bit in the finish. A bit over-spiced. Medium bodied and sticky on the tongue.

O: An interesting and heavily spiced BA quad. Above average but I'd hoped for more out of this one. Glad I picked a cold fall night to give it a go.

On tap at Roscoe's today.

The beer pours a fairly dark brown color with good head retention and decent lacing. The nose is pretty Impressive, as I pick up considerable dark fruit, chocolate and bourbon. There's something of an underlying rootbeer aroma as well, something I often pick up in Belgian quads. The flavor profile largely replicates the nose, though the amount of bourbon I'm picking up is surprising... In a good way (it's considerable). There's some light cherry and considerable spice in this beer as well (some noticeable ginger and nutmeg perhaps). This is really a pretty impressive effort from the folks at Lost Abbey. Mouthfeel is fairly full in this fairly sweet beer, with a long, spice infused finish. Alcohol is pretty well integrated into the flavor profile, though you can tell the abv. is up there a bit. Drinkability is decent, but this is definitely a sipper.

Really well crafted effort from the folks at Lost Abbey. I can see where this beer would be no fun with low or negligible carbonation, but on tap that's no problem of course. On tap this beer is flat out excellent.

375ml bottle poured into a goblet.

A: Mahogany brown color. Completely still with zero head formation or retention, even when poured more aggressively.

S: Dusty old cocoa powder, toffee, nutty, caramel, bread crust. Oak and bourbon are apparent. Undercurrents of anise and some dark fruit. Bit of ginger and orange peel too.

T: Burnt crust, cocoa, and semi sweet dark chocolate at the outset. Perhaps some mild roast. Bit of vinous dark fruit, in the vein of Pinot noir and black cherry. Bourbon ball candy- chewy caramel and chocolate. Oak and bourbon backing. Flash of orange peel and warming ginger. Anise is subdued, but there in the form of black licorice in the background. Finishes with some smokey, charred bourbon barrel notes.

M: Medium bodied. There’s some mild viscosity and chewiness to it. Alcohol warmth and a very gentle brush of wood tannin. Other than that, it is completely still and lifeless. No carbonation to be found.

O: It’s a pity, I thought Lost Abbey had handled its carbonation issues. I can certainly see the potential here, but it’s missing a lot of texture and dimension without that carbonation, and it’s a big time annoyance.

 

 

This was poured into a chalice.
The appearance yielded a dark amber/brown color in the pour but had more of a dark brown color in my glass. Barely any head and what was there dissipated immediately. No lace.
The aroma had an absolutely amazing blend of star anise, Belgian malts, some earthy spice tones, red cherry skin, orange peel and a touch of raisins. Light char/woody barrel on the back end.
The flavor bounced between spicy and sweet with an ample citrusy bitterness cutting in for more complexity. Subtle aftertaste of woody barrel sweetness along with star anise spiciness.
The mouthfeel was about medium to full bodied with an average sipping quality about it. Good enough carbonation. Subtle stickiness flowing against some orange peel rind harshness, interesting but definitely provides some grip. Finish had some sticky raisins, rich earthy woody barrel ginger harshness and some sweet bourbon dryness.
Overall, oh wow what a beer! A definite sipper waiting for a storm to enter my area!

The mahogany brown colored beer pours out into a snifter glass with a minimal head that soon disappears to leave only a small ring around the glass and a tiny irregular thin touch of foam on the surface of the liquid. At first, sipping creates a couple of slender arches and few small scattered patches of lacing but those ae soon slide back to the liquid and fairly soon sipping creates nothing at all.

The aromas are complex with malt, dark stone fruit, orange, ginger, dark fruits, light bourbon, spices, and a bit of licorice

The flavors are more complex than expected from the nose and include sweet dark brown sugar and toasted malt, a bit of bourbon, some light orange and ginger and some dark fruits such as figs and raisins. There’s also a bit of oak along with the spices and licorice. There's also a hint of char and a combination of flavors that is more like dark rum than bourbon that has an accent of chocolate and vanilla. The rich complex flavors conceal the alcohol well.

The mouthfeel is full-bodied and creamy smooth with little or no carbonation. The finish has lots of dark fruit and oak that slowly fades to leave semi-sweet firmly spicy ending with orange and ginger that also shows the licorice and dark fruits for quite a long time until all just disappears.

Overall this is a very complex beer for sipping and is quite enjoyable. The various flavors come and go in the sense that sometimes the bourbon and dark fruits are more forward and on other occasions the ginger, orange and licorice are supported by the bourbon and dark brown sugar and toasted malt sweetness. A well balanced complex flavor profile make this a great possibility for an aperitif when dining with friends or something well suited for sipping while sitting by a nice fire with a good book.

 

 

 

 

I suspect the beer scene within 10 miles of my hotel received a pretty good boost during the three weeks I was in California. This corked & caged 375ML bottle was one of many, many purchases.

The cork comes out & I hear nothing. Maybe the backyard owl heard something? Good squirrel bacon, how many years of bad carbonation can one brewery have & learn nothing? Dark brown, reddish highlights, mostly dead all day. Ginger comes through the nose with a light sweetness; not much going on, even after a half hour warm-up.

Ex Cathedra smells like nothing & tastes like stuff. Still a lot of ginger (& not the best kind), which runs roughshod across the palate. Barrel heavy & if I didn’t know better I’d guess bourbon, whiskey, rum, & probably other stuff, though I know it’s not all there. Heavy molasses, vanilla, brown sugar, black licorice, with a lightly bitter finish (I’m guessing the oranges, otherwise MIA). Lack of carbonation & big ABV make this lead-pie heavy, & I feel like I’ve had twice the beer I’ve actually consumed.

This brew almost perfectly illustrates the conundrum that is The Lost Abbey: a tasty beer that’s seriously flawed. Still manages to be pretty good.