Biere D'Art
Heavyweight Brewing Co.

Biere D'ArtBiere D'Art
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From:
Heavyweight Brewing Co.
 
New Jersey, United States
Style:
Bière de Garde
ABV:
7.8%
Score:
88
Avg:
3.94 | pDev: 11.93%
Reviews:
69
Ratings:
72
Status:
Retired
Rated:
Jan 27, 2012
Added:
Aug 17, 2002
Wants:
  1
Gots:
  2
No description / notes.
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Ratings by Higravity:
Photo of Higravity
Reviewed by Higravity from Michigan

4.55/5  rDev +15.5%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 5 | overall: 4.5
Wow is this a tasty beer. Poured in a Delerium glass and got a nice frothy white head on top of a blonde straw beer that was hazy. The nose brought out spiceness of pepper and sweetness of fruit sugar and malt. The first sip was a lot to deal with as the flavor are various of pear- green apple notes, sugar, decocted malt that really stands up as the peppery spices sets in to the tonuge. The yeast flavors follow after the swallow blooming on your tongue of a Belgian yeast garden, slightly buttery and phenolic but a great finish. It has a terrific feel that stays full in your mouth and each sip needs to be folowed by another. Lovely beer and I was left wanting as I finished the bottle.

Thanks Tom for sending this lovely beer to me.
Feb 10, 2005
More User Ratings:
 
Rated: 4 by Beertracker from Oklahoma

Jan 27, 2012
 
Rated: 3.5 by ygtbsm94 from Utah

Jan 10, 2012
 
Rated: 4 by rab53 from Washington

Dec 01, 2011
Photo of Sycodrummer
Reviewed by Sycodrummer from Massachusetts

4.05/5  rDev +2.8%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.5
Poured from green 750ml capped champaigne bottle into a large tear drop glass the beer was a soft burnt orange color with one and a half fingers of fluffly slightly off-white head. Some spotty lacing throughout the sample, and some carbonation bubbles streamed up the sides of the glass to feed the head.

The smell is very alcoholic and phenolic upfront. Very spicey nose with some orange, general citrus, corriander, clove and a yeasty aroma all coming through. Hints of a medicinal aroma in the background.

Alcohol and spiceness are apparent immediatley in the taste. A very "hot" beer. Alcohol comes through nicely and grabs the tounge with a potent presence. Citrus and clove surround the palate with a firm malty body. A very slight hop character makes it presence known, but little associated bitterness. Alcohol is not hidden and remains hot throughout the sample, perhaps hotter as the beer warms.

Medium firm, very bubbly body. Lots of carbonation here, the bottle gushed for a moment or two after openening.

A good beer but at times a bit too spicey for my taste. Some Triple like flavors, just not all that drinkable for me. For the style, however, well done.
Jul 14, 2006
Photo of laintringulis
Reviewed by laintringulis from Ohio

3.85/5  rDev -2.3%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.5
Beer was poured into a wide mouth wine goblet. It looks like slight cloudy liquid peach jello with a thin creamy head, light carbonation and moderate lacing. Quite attractive looking.
Very complex smell and taste. Smells mainly of musty honey with light smells of cloves, pepper and peach/nectarine. Tastes as it smells with a bit of oaky smokiness. Very smooth with a great coating mouthfeel; however, it finishes a bit too dry for my taste. It left me really thirsty between drinks. This beer is very drinkable, but it is definitely not a session beer. I would gladly have more of this.
Jun 16, 2006
Photo of nlmartin
Reviewed by nlmartin from Ohio

3.9/5  rDev -1%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.5
The beer was purchased in Philly at the Foodery. The beer was served in a wide mouthed wine goblet.

Appearance: The beer has a golden amber coloration. The head was a creamy white coloration one finger high. The beer left rings of lacing on the glass. The beer was effervescent but not overly so.

Smell: The beer has a musty fruityness about it. The beer has the smells of sour apples, citrus and apricots. The beer has a pleasantly spicy honey and cloves smell.

Taste: The beer is big time loaded with malty goodness. The beer pays out a spicy yeasty musty fruityness consisting of citrus and apricots. The beer has a very good honey and cloves combo.

Mouthfeel/ Drinkability: The beer is medium bodied. The beer has a very pleasant musty funkyness. This beer is a definately not a chore to drink. The beer starts out smooth and finishes roughly dry.
Jun 15, 2006
Photo of Franchise
Reviewed by Franchise from Oregon

4.12/5  rDev +4.6%
look: 4 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4
Poured from a green 750ml bottle a georgeous roasted pecan leaving a cloudy body with a slight tan head. The nose is sweet, caramel, citrus hop, peach, and honey very complex nose sweet and malty. The taste is sweet on the palate, honey, herbs, and spices. As I take a second whiff some vanilla, oak, with a touch of smokiness. The finish is crisp, carbonated, a little dry and rough with a brush of alcohal in the throat.
May 25, 2006
Photo of Jredner
Reviewed by Jredner from Florida

3.46/5  rDev -12.2%
look: 4 | smell: 3 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.5
Sugary aroma includes sweet caramel malt and a sharpness that isn’t quite of spicy or carbonation in origin. Very attention getting aroma. Cloudy amber body witha pinky thin white head. Big caramel accented malt fore. Sweet bread and candy flavors are big in the middle and give the beer an easy drinking smoothness. Some yeastyness in the finish and a punch of spiciness.
May 19, 2006
Photo of Sephiroth
Reviewed by Sephiroth from Indiana

3.31/5  rDev -16%
look: 4.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3 | feel: 4 | overall: 3
Thanks to Beerbeing for the bottle. Pours with decent head and good lacing. Body is a somewhat dark orange. Aroma of sweet caramel, toasted malt. Faint hops.

Big caramel and toasted sweet malt. A little too sweet for me, but I still appreciate the beer. Faint grassy hops. Mouthfeel is full and carbonated. Drinkability is OK.
May 10, 2006
Photo of ggaughan
Reviewed by ggaughan from Pennsylvania

3.57/5  rDev -9.4%
look: 3 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 4
Picked up a growler of this from the Flying Pig in Malvern to take to a Phillies game. The beer poured a good amber color with a medium white fluffy head. The aroma was yeasty with some banana and citrus notes. Pleasing to the nose but not overwhelmingly great. The taste was caramelly sweet, some citrus and banana notes round this one out. Pleasing to the mouth and easy to drink although at times a bit too sweet. Overall a fine beer that I enjoyed sharing with friends a having a few of.
May 08, 2006
Photo of BuckeyeNation
Reviewed by BuckeyeNation from Iowa

3.53/5  rDev -10.4%
look: 4 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.5
Brassy orange with a fine yeasty haze. Given the way the bottom several inches of bottled beer looks, the final few pours will murk up the glass nicely. The attractive cap of foam looks even better after a second pour. The head resembles lemon and orange juice-infused heavily whipped cream, hasn't noticeably deflated in the past several minutes and appears to be a wonderful lace generator. It's not a classic Biere De Garde look (if there is such a thing), but it looks pretty good to me.

The nose isn't very interesting. Nothing is laid on with very heavy brushstrokes, just little wisps of color here and there. Lightly sour fruity, yeasty, musty, herbal... a melange of aromatics that aren't all that aromatic and don't stand out either individually or in combination. I'm hoping that the flavor is more dynamic and more defined.

I've been unable to determine if Biere D'Art was a one-time release back in 2002 or if it has been brewed since and I have a fairly fresh bottle. In any case, the beer is more bold on the palate than it is in the nose, but that doesn't mean that it's any better or more compelling. The various elements that make up the flavor profile tend to run together like the colors in the abstract painting seen on the label. As a result, the beer tastes... muddled.

There's a fair amount of malt--as the style demands--with flavors of sour apricot, white pepper, sandlewood, stale clove and ethanol. Unfortunately, there's no focal point and no cohesiveness, not even as the beer gains a few degrees. If anything, the individual elements are becoming more indistinguishable with time and drinking. Perhaps the alcohol is beginning to numb my tastebuds.

If I hadn't had a few other Bieres De Garde, I'd wonder if my lack of enthusiasm had more to do with this particular style than with this beer specifically. Maybe it's just old beer that has lost its spark. Then again, maybe it's just fresh beer that hasn't had the opportunity to fully mesh. Whatever its age, it isn't doing much for me at the moment.

The body is medium in a general sense with no trace of creaminess or silkiness. It has some degree of expansiveness in the mouth and doesn't break down on the finish, but isn't what I'd call mouth pleasing. The spritely degree of carbonation that I experienced in the first several ounces has settled down nicely and should see me comfortably through the remainder of the bottle.

I'm not a huge fan of modern/abstract art, but every once in a while throwing seemingly disparate colors and shapes together on the same canvas can create beauty out of chaos. More often than not though, chaos is simply chaos. That's how I feel about Biere D'Art. I'll have no trouble finishing the bottle, but a masterpiece it most certainly is not.
May 06, 2006
Photo of NolanGTI
Reviewed by NolanGTI from Pennsylvania

3.07/5  rDev -22.1%
look: 4.5 | smell: 2.5 | taste: 3 | feel: 3 | overall: 3.5
Looked great on the pour. Hazy apricot with a thin wispy head. Had to sniff...and sniff....and sniff....and finally realized the aromtics just weren't there. It has some citrus and orange going on, but not much. The taste was pretty unexceptional. Not bad, it just didn't really come on with any strong discernable falvors. The mouthfeel didn't help the lack of taste either..this beer just sort of exists.
Mar 23, 2006
Photo of tavernjef
Reviewed by tavernjef from Minnesota

3.47/5  rDev -11.9%
look: 3 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.5
Opaque peachy hay. If it weren't for the small ring of foamy bubbles displaced around the top edge I would've thought I was lookng at a glass of wax.

Aroma is fair with a medium sour orange and lemony tartness. A slight bit musty with a hovering coat of metalic scoring.

Taste is also quite fair and brief. Uncomplexing and straight forward with a scimping sourness of orange, lemon, and nectarine. Small alkaline bitterness towards the finish that ends abruptly leaving a light fluffly dryness of yeasty wood and parched, old candy. Tart leftovers mix with a chalky residue.

Feel is a tad shy of medium, flat and low ended carboation, some empty areas never quite fill in as th flavor character just doesn't want to take off fully. It has and wants potential, but it just isn't doing it for me. Quite plain actually.

I'm being a bit generous, as its hard to put numbers to beers like this for me. I'm just not feeling it with this. It goes no where and the finish is reached too quickly and within itself doesn't fair well with its chalky residue and off-parching citrus. This one can be just as subjective as any abstract painting. This one reminds me of the messy work by Guston.
Feb 24, 2006
Photo of nvsblman
Reviewed by nvsblman from Arizona

3.9/5  rDev -1%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.5
Hazy amber/copper color with a large fluffy white head. Yeasty aroma with some banana and grass and hints of green apple. The yeast helps provide a nice crisp flavor with some citrus and clove. A slight caramel sweetness to this too. Well carbonated, medium to full bodied. I enjoyed this beer, but for some reason I had a hard time finishing this. I'd be interested to try this again to see what I think of it some other time.
Feb 19, 2006
Photo of TheLongBeachBum
Reviewed by TheLongBeachBum from California

4.5/5  rDev +14.2%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5
Presentation: 750ml with brass colored crown cap. Colorful label, resplendent as it is with artwork from Canadian Artiste Christine Haley, per the BA database picture. Listed at 7.7% ABV. No freshness date.

Appearance: Lightly hazed Orangeade with some Lyle’s Golden Syrup and shredded marmalade flashes thrown in for good measure White head with a soft beige tint. Foamy head, the kind that is composed of thousands of small but individually visible bubbles. Retention is decent, nothing outstanding but it laces nicely and hangs around long enough to add to the visuals. Packed with lively streamers, yet the carbonation is medium in nature.

Nose: Ooooh, I love the nose. Something different and a nice change of pace. Fruity peaches mixed with a toasted lager backdrop. Rises with peppered apples, baked peaches, apricot purée, soft Satsuma’s and a treacle like sweetness. As it warms, all of this is bolstered by a Tripel-like alcohol punch that woks its way through the enticing nose.

Taste: I feel like I covered the taste profile in nose, but No!! It gets better than that. The carbonation weaves a honeycomb on the palate, this in turn is filled by a mixture of toasted malts, peaches, caramel, oranges, mashed up Granny Smith apples, spicy alcohol, slivered plum skins, raisin stuffed Bartlett Pears slowly baked in brown sugar and Belgian yeast is detectable too….or am I imagining the last bit!? No I am not. It seems like the yeasty influence becomes the protectorate of the sweeter dimensions at times, the influence of the fruits and spice is King though. Damn I love this stuff.

Mouthfeel: Transient but ever-changing feel, soft peachy carpet feel can soon turn to a clean yet sharp orange twang, it fizzles and pops between the two, the change in feel is often the attraction here rather than the feel, sort of like the rate of acceleration is more important than the actual speed, of that makes sense.

Drinkability: Drink, drink, drink….a quaffer, as unique as it feels, as quirky as it is for a Bière de Garde, it has a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ which means I find it hard to leave this alone for too long.

Overall: For me, the style “stick it in a beery pigeon hole” hater, this is more like a wild-orchard-fruity-Tripel, this is far from a classic example of a Bière de Garde, but I don’t really give a f**k what it says on the packet. This is damn lovely stuff. Started good but after the first glass when my tastes buds realigned, that is when this one really started to grow on me, moreso with each and every subsequent mouthful. It took some time but work this one out and it ends up being a Crusade that is a super treat in the long term. A great relaxation to a very long hassled day!

A Big Thanks to Erica for the Birthday bière, and another chance to sample some more of the Heavyweight portfolio.

Expand your mind. Recommended.
Feb 08, 2006
Photo of Hautacam
Reviewed by Hautacam from Connecticut

4.35/5  rDev +10.4%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5
Just had this at the Real Ale Fest in CT. 1/29/06
I've only had one other Bier de Garde,but think this is a very good style for me.
This was my favorite today...and there were many fantastic ales.
Appeared golden , slighty cloudy...small head..which diminshed quickly.
Smelled of fruit , spices, citrus... . a little malt and hay...smelled a little like a saison.
Taste was slightly sweet, fruity and malty...very complex..a lot of flavors coming and going that I can't quite nail down..but, a really good balance of everything.... very delicate hop , semi dry finish..just great.
Low to medium mouthfeel....carbonation was perfect...although,everything today seemed to have perfect carbonation...can't beat casks !
Very drinkable...but with all the other choices at the fest...I had to move on.
I can't get this in CT....damn...will have to drive to MA or NY...good thing CT is small and flanked by states that don't discourage craft-brewer neighbors from selling their beers here.
I will definitely be looking for this.
Jan 29, 2006
Photo of EPseja
Reviewed by EPseja from New Jersey

3.63/5  rDev -7.9%
look: 4 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 4
Served from a bomber bottle in my trusty Duvel tulip glass at just below cellar temperature.

A - Pours a bright gold color with decent clarity save a very light chill haze. Head rises to a full finger in height -- stiff in stature, composed of inconsistent sized bubbles that remain to form a nice mat atop the beer after it has subsided. Active carbonation produces continual streams of tiny bubbles from many points within the glass. Lacing is spotty, but present.

S - Yeasty sweetness and and mature, hopped malts. A definite organic flair. Notes of honey, yeast, alcohol, and possibly corander can be detected.

T - The fist thing I notice is that this beer is very wineline in character and has many traits that parallel what I found when I brewed my own meade - honey sweetness, tart yeastiness, and undisguised alcohol. The maltiness in this beer provides a lightly toasted profile that is well balanced by the mildly bitter European-tasting noble hoppiness. Drinks like a wine more than a beer. Unfortunately leaves a touch of cloying stickiness in the back of the throat.

M - Very tiny pin-tip tingliness on the tongue, welling up to a comfortable lather that rocks like ocean foam. For as prevalent as the alcohol is, the swallow is smooth. Unfortunately, the throat-filling feel of this beer makes for a slightly gassy belly-feel. *burp*

D - This beer would be an excellent compliment to food, and that's what it is ultimately best suited for. In that capacity, it would be considered highly drinkable, but as a beer to drink for the sake of simply having a beer, it's a tad too ostentatious.
Jan 16, 2006
Photo of beveragecaptain
Reviewed by beveragecaptain from New Jersey

4.03/5  rDev +2.3%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4
750 ml bottle. This beer pours out a hazy yellow brown color with a big head. Aroma is malt, pepper, lemon, and cider. Malty caramel flavor with lots of peppery spice and just a little lemon. Bursts of burning alcohol. Apple flavor in the finish. I would like if the finish was a little drier. Other than that, the flavor is great. Medium to full mouthfeel. Carbonation is high. A tasty example of the biere de garde style.
Nov 01, 2005
Photo of Sammy
Reviewed by Sammy from Canada (ON)

3.85/5  rDev -2.3%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4
Nicely done. Mellow, I thought this was a fresh batch in a new store (Cable in Severne, New York State) If it isn't, it mellowed nicely. Easy drink. Looks cidery but isn't,spot of lemon, pepper, and drop of vinegar, nice retaining white head on light colour. One of their better ones.
Oct 23, 2005
Biere D'Art from Heavyweight Brewing Co.
Beer rating: 88 out of 100 with 72 ratings