Belgian Ale
New Planet Beer Company

New Planet Belgian Style Ale
12oz bottle poured into a pint glass
Amber colored body with no head.
Aromas include wine? Brown rice saki? tequila?
Flavors include citrus notes and a dry finish.

 

 

 

12oz bottle, and called 'Belgian Style Ale' on the label. Made with sorghum and brown rice 'extract'.

This beer pours a clear, pale golden amber colour, with three fingers of puffy, densely foamy, and somewhat creamy off-white head, which leaves pretty much nothing in the way of lace anywhere near the glass as it quickly evaporates.

It smells of semi-sweet, kind of tart and musty grain (the sorghum), a mild dark sugary thing (the brown rice, I'm guessing), muddled black orchard fruit (maybe a bit of plum), watery field honey, and a further dank cider-like astringency. The taste is sour, acrid graininess, mixed with a still dusty and stale hard cider unpleasantness, some pithy and glutenous rice sweetness, overripe green apple skin, and a meek floral, earthy, and very weedy hop bitterness.

The carbonation is fairly light and mostly innocuous in its fleeting frothiness, the body an airy medium weight, and sort of smooth, I guess, once you get past that hovering clamminess - so, not really. It finishes quite dry, but still musty, phenolic, and dead floral in nature.

Overall, this is a typical and barely average version of this undefined style, of the sort that insists on using sorghum as the primary fermentable ingredient. Folks, it just doesn't work, and adding some lab-derived brown rice to sort things out here is like putting cheap cosmetics on a real little piggy.

Gluten free, Ok cool.
this beer looks like ginger ale, smells like garbage, taste is passable but I am purposely not using a glass, based on the smell I am trying to keep taste to a minimum. It feels like an adjunct on the palate.
Overall this is a lesson learned. I don't know what exactly gluten is but it is apparently important to making beer taste good. One down 23 to go. I bought it on a whim from the 15 dollar per case rack at the distro. Bad decisions and I am not even drunk yet.

 

I purchased this at a Total Wine & More, either in Norfolk, VA or one of the VA suburbs of DC. I had a colleague who is gluten-free and I told her that I would keep my eye out for G-F beer options and report back to her on my findings. In the interim, I retired from that job and I still have the beers awaiting review.

From the Bottle: "Simply Distinct"; "Gluten Free"; "Ale Made From Sorghum and Brown Rice Extract"; "New Planet Beer chooses to support organizations that help our planet."

I am now hesitant about these beers, given just how awful their New Planet Amber Ale turned out to be. Still, I Pop!ped the cap and began a heavy-handed pour. I got a brief finger of eggnog-colored head that quickly fell to a wispy skim atop the beer. Nose had a slightly sour tang to it and I am beginning to wonder how viable sorghum is as an ingredient. I realize that I am not the intended audience, but I would not wish this on anybody. It was not as astringent as the Amber Ale, but it was close and I was not looking forward to it. Color was Amber (SRM = > 7, < 9) with NE-quality clarity. Mouthfeel was a bit thin, kind of watery. The taste had that sour/tart apple vinegar bite that I have noticed in all of their beers, but not as sharply as in some. Still, what was making it a "Belgian Ale"? The flavors were slightly vanilla-like, but still not like anything that would suggest Belgian. Finish was dry, slightly astringent, but nothing that I could not handle. It was a pleasant enough version of a G-F beer, but I still would not recommend it to anyone who has non-G-F options open to them.

First gluten-free beer I've tried ... not a big fan !

 

 

 

 

Going Gluten Free and having to give up beer was a terrible shock. As gluten free became a popular fad in the United States, more and more GF beers began appearing. I do not know if it is the nature of sorghum based brews, but many have a sour taste that does not belong in beer - although it works well with the Raspberry Ale also manufactured by New Planet. The Belgian Ale is excellent. Well hopped. AND, if you cook with beer (as in Flemish Carbonnade) the New Planet Belgian Ale works PERFECTLY!

A- well, no head. It looks lifeless aside from a small amount of visible carbonation. It looks like!e flat ginger ale.

S- pretty good, it has some of that Belgian pale ale biscuit aroma. Some cinnamon, and mild spicy hops.

T- ummm, what is this? Watery... Some light hop flavors and then... Nothing. The finish is... Well, it's bad. It tastes stale with an underlying sweetness. The orange peel is detectable.

M- light, almost no carbonation. It has a syrupy edge to it.

O-... Not great.

 

 

Striking the difference between what is Belgian ale and what is gluten-free beer, a new and pleasant taste emerges in New Planet's Belgian Ale!

Its turbulent pour brings about an eruptive champagne-like exuberance. It's high rise of bubbles stream to the top and pop upon contact to reinforce its champagne notions. But with its struggle to retain any meaningful head character and its faltering lace, the beer's lack of true malt structure takes its toll early.

Honey, cider, spice and floral character all emerge simultaneously upon the nose. The balanced scent rests heavy on the perfume of honeysuckle and orange blossom. With the lacking bread backbone, more wine-like tones of green apple and and acidity become the story of aroma as the first taste draws near.

Dry to perfection, the beer's soft sweetness seems as much from fruit as it is from anything else. Its light honey backdrop is woven into grape, green apple, cranberry and pear and really come to life in the middle palate. Trailing spice is delicately of cinnamon, but is also of clove, white pepper, white wine acidity and nutmeg. That clever mix is mild, to insinuate yeast contribution, but allows a spicy finish with echoes of fruit and spice in aftertaste.

Its absolute lightness is paramount from the beginning. There's no real malt structure for the carbonation to embed into. Therefore the carbonation escapes from the beer in a big ole hurry; giving a highly carbonic bite on the tongue. After which there's a long draw of mineral, water and cider until the beer finishes dry, spicy and warm.

Faring much better than many of the gluten free beer options on the market, New Planet's Belgian Ale hits its target well. Though its cidery character may be largely unavoidable- those apple and grape trends lend themselves to Belgian Ale quite well. It's still a far cry from the classic Golden Ales of Belgium.

So this is my beer world for a while. When drinking a gluten free beer, one has to realize that it will be very different from the average beer. When you accept this fact, you may appreciate some of the nuances.

Appearance - The beer was a golden color with a soda-like intensity of carbonation bubbling about the glass.

Smell - One can detect the banana notes amid the rice. Obviously, you should not expect aromas of wheat or malt.

Taste - The banana notes are toward the front, before running dry and bubble -gummy toward the back. There are some beer qualities present. One might be able to detect a dry wheat sensation. The dry finish is pleasant.

Mouthhfeel - If this is supposed to give the impression that it is a Belgian, it is just not thick enough.

Overall - This is among the better gluten free beers I have had. But my message to gluten free brewers as a whole is don't stop improving.