Anianish
de Garde Brewing

 

 

Sweet and tart, fruity/spicy fruit cake aromatics on this one! Yummy! There is a hint of funkiness on the nose as well. Taste follows with a zippy-tart, fruity, and warm-spiced swallow...that has a hint of oak finish to it! This is just well-done...so well-balanced and it aged very well! All the flavors and different notes kind of just melt and flow together. This is really good!

 

 

 

750mL into a tulip. Pours a clear golden color w/ a light sudsy white head, patchy lace.

Aroma is bright and crisp with a touch of farmhouse funk. Pear, green apple, fresh-cut grass. Inviting.

Taste is light and tart, mouth-watering. Lemon zest, apple, bright acidity.

Mouthfeel is refreshing and crisp, goes down nicely with every palate-cleansing sip.

Overall, not surprisingly a delicious, refreshing wild ale from de Garde.

Look: Orange body, massive 4 finger white head.

Smell: Stone fruits, orange, mild brett, mild oak.

Taste: A lot of lemon, mild stone fruits, brett funkyness and earth. A hint of toasted bread and oak on the finish. I wonder if I waited too long to have this, the flavor leaves a bit to be desired.

Feel: Light body, medium carbonation, medium sourness.

 

 

 

I think this was the cheapest bottle they had when I visited the brewery August 2017. Gone are the days of $5 Hop Bu or whatnot. But what was this, $8 maybe? Anyways, pours an innocent looking cloudy yellow with 3/4" white head. De Garde's appearance of their portfolio seems to have improved since my trip here 2 years ago. Aroma had plenty of grassy spice rack going for it and some lemon like tartness.

Taste, wow, this might be the spice rack heaviest beer I've had from them, legitimately can't tell if there is a belgian yeast here or I'm just conflating the inflated spice rack as something being imparted from the yeast. Fog of war and shit. Has a mild bretty presence causing some sticky on the teeth. A little bit more of oak is finally coming through in the mouth feel at the end. Must and earth funk feels growing. Coriander, musty grape skin, citrus peel, nutmeg spice rack all day. Its a neat little grab bag of beer you must reverse engineer.

they tell us fruit and spices, but they give us nothing else about whats in this one. its intriguing that way, sort of a blind taste test to try and pick out the various elements. they make it tricky on us too, having it all so subtle and well integrated, wrapped up in oak and incredibly mature wild yeasts, sour and funky alike, really complex, delicious, and drinkable beer. i havent had much from these guys, their stuff has been hard to track down, so it was nice to be able to share a few with friends recently. this is golden from the bottle at first, ever so faintly rusted looking, bright though, until the bottom few inches in the bottle where it turns a bit cloudy with sediment. aroma here is dried apricot, white wine, dried grasses and hay, musty mature brett, and sturdy new oak. some spice that is actually spicy in the flavor, black pepper maybe, i expected mulling spices or coriander, and there could be a bit of the latter, but there is a distinctly actually spicy element to this, its subtle and snuggled up in wood, but its there, a dried herbal aspect with it, not as bitter as tea, but similarly earthy and organic. i get apricot in the flavor for fruit, but its faint, white grape, even pear, its not over the top and its not sweet at all. i wish i knew what was in here, but i also enjoy not knowing, just enjoying it for being a complex and very well made and well integrated wild beer, woody and sour enough with a lot of funk and a light citrusy finish. clean and bubbly. this was a real enjoyable bottle of beer!

 

 

 

 

Huge passion fruit, grapefruit, tart