The Frais A L’Orange
de Garde Brewing

This beer pours a golden color with a nice citrus aroma and stone fruit sweetness. Really enjoyed this one. Had @ de Garde 5-2-2025

 

Poured from a corked and capped 750mL bottle into a SP stemmed “Cheers” wine glass. Pours a hazy orange with a little over two fingers of soapy white foam head. Head dissipates to a thick collar around the rim of the glass with a few patches of soapy foam here and there atop the hazy liquid. Blue cheese funk, citrus, tropical fruit, vegatal hops and dank earth on the nose. The aroma is every bit as funky as it is dank and citrusy. It almost borders on unpleasant stickiness for half of a second before the citrus masks it or works with it. The taste is much more citrus and earthy with the funky, cheesy hops not nearly as present as they were on the nose. It finishes a tad watery too. It’s kind of too bad as having some of that fresh hop bite that is so pungent on the nose in the finish of this would elevate the score for me a bit. It’s still really good though. And it’s not that I don’t get the hops in the flavor but they seem much more there for aromatics, at least to me. Medium-full mouthfeel with that signature dG high carbonation and oaky dry finish. Really good stuff. A lot of these beers (and their beers) I like with some age on them but this one seems mi h better suited to opening fresh and glad I did as the nose was an incredible bouquet of dank and funk from the combination of the fresh hops and aged beer. I like the idea or the concept behind this beer and this one was pulled off with great execution.