Amour Fou
Fox Farm Brewery

 

B2, drank 02.10.26.

2024-07-08
500ml bottle served in a slightly tulip-shaped wine glass. Batch #2, bottled May 21. Received face-to-face from @Roguer.

Pours reddish-brown, maybe a slight haze, moderate head and non-trivial active carbonation. Smell is hay, wet wood, funk, cherries, barnyard.

Taste is tart, chardonnay butteriness, cherry skin, cherry and unsweetened grape juice tartness, barnyard and wet wood come through really strong here.

Mouthfeel is medium, kind of dry, surprisingly still for as lively as it looks.

 

Pouring a cellar temp bottle into a snifter. Bottled May 2021 batch #2.
Beer pours a rich chestnut with some ruby highlights. A short lived beige fizzy head of 1 cm foams up and fades to almost nothing soon after the pour.
Aroma is mostly some red wine and a bit of tart cherry. Not sweet fruit here and not really malty nor any hop character. Sort of the nose I would expect based on the aging process.
First sip reveals a light body with very fine yet prickly carbonation. Texture is a little thin but does leave some residual coating on my lips.
Flavor is red wine bold merlot notes and some tart cherry pops in the middle. I get a bit of a sour note on the sides of my palate, but its not overly acidic. No hop notes, and not really funk or barnyard etc. ABV is hidden and the beer drinks pretty easy. I do wonder what the base would be like without wine barrels nor cherries. As I dont get much beyond those exposures in the beer.
Its a good beer, i wouldnt drink a ton of this but one bottle seems an appropriate experience.

16.9oz/500mL bottle courtesy of Roguer. According to the label, this is from Batch 2, bottled on May 21, or May of 2021, not sure which.

Poured into a teku, this was a russet potato brown color, taking on a more burnt orange shade when held up to light. Thin, bubbly, beige colored head. No lace to speak of.

Nose is quite vinuous. Smells like red wine, cherries, and vinegar, in that order.

A little more cherry and less funk than I expected from the nose. This could perhaps lure in someone who doesn't think they would like a bretty beer. Finishes dry, tart and acidic. This might have started life as a Biere de Garde, but the finished product doesn't seem representative of the style, although I definitely like it.

Medium bodied, with a coating, slightly "cotton-mouthy" feel.

Nice fruited sour beer, enjoying it this cold afternoon. I wouldn't want to session this beer, or anything else like it, really, but I would absolutely drink it again.

 

Absolutely gorgeous beer (although you should decant if you want to maintain the clarity). Dark brown with ruby highlights; excellent head production and good retention.

Very tart nose, with a pungent funkiness, along with fruit and oak. Cherry, peach, oak, tannins, vinegar.

Even more tart on the palate, with notes of vinegar, cherry pits, oak, leather, tannins, dark grains.

500 ml bottle split with my wife, poured into a wine glass. Pours light brown with a reddish hue. Medium head, small amount of lacing. Aroma is bright sour cherries and grape up front with vanilla, oak, and funk secondary. Taste is similar but the fruit is in the background with heavy funk, leather, mouth-puckering acidity, and tannins. Cherry and vanilla are secondary. Mouthfeel is dry, moderately carbonated, and astringent.

Overall, this beer has a lot of great characteristics but ultimately it's lacking in drinkability due to the combination of elevated sourness and funk. I'm surprised to hear myself saying that, because this is probably my single favorite style of beer (wild/funky fruited oak-aged sour) but for me it was a bit out of balance.

 

 

 

Dull and dirty brownish-orange body; pretty cloudy; massive carbonation presence; thin yet lasting head, fizzy. Complex smell combination; barnyard funk, oak, cherries. Big sour and tart taste; yeasty malt presence underneath; black cherries and red fruit wine; earthy. Medium body; crisp and acidic; subtle creaminess around the finish.

This is a very fruit-forward beer, very tart and sour initially, yet some amazing complexities develop as the beer opens up.

Pouring temperature: 45 °F; bottling data: Batch № 2, BOTTLED: May 21

Allrighty then! Gonna go for my 2nd Mystery Beer from @Roy_Hobbs in NBS BIF BIF #15, and gonna go live. Seems to be a brown 16-ish oz brown bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag, the only hint being 6.5%.

No pop when I cracked the crown. Poured a dark, lightly muddy, brown color, with a touch of red around the edges of the teku, and 2/3 of an inch of light tan head that had low retention and no lacing. 3.25/3.5

The aroma had a solid fruit scent atop solid malts. The fruit seems to be grape, leaning to cherry. I'm not picking up barrel or booze. 3.5

Similar on the tongue, with some acidic/sourness, especially at the back end. The fruit wasn't as strong as in the aroma, but was still present, more towards grape than cherry though. 3.5

The body was solidly medium, leaning a bit towards full, smooth, with decent carb, and a dry-ish, bitter finish. 3.5

Drinkability was good, not sure I'd want two in a row, but would have it again.

Overall, a pretty nice brew, one I'd like to have again.

 

Poured at fridge temp. Pours a gorgeous dark brown with a reddish tint. Very little head, but bubbles lacing the glass throughout. Looks fantastic.

The nose is absolutely insane. Sour cherries, a leathery funk, red grapes, vinous. Intense. The smell of fruit is just so fresh. This draws you in, and begs you to take another sniff. Wow.

The taste is equally as amazing. The first sip is met with sour and funk. Not mouth puckering, but pretty intense. Leather, oak, cherries, vanilla, red grape skins, a bit of lemon, and a hint of wheat. I haven't had a beer like this before. Just keep wanting more.

Mouthfeel is fairly dry and the sour/funk leaves a nice aftertaste. Overall, this is an outstanding beer.

 

Amour Fou (2021) from Fox Farm. Received from @Roy_Hobbs in BIF #14. 500 mL capped bottle. Stored at home at 38 degrees. Reviewed 8/12/21. Note that I use DD/MM/YY protocol.
Printed on end of label “BATCH NO. 1 BOTTLED: NOV 19”. Served at 51.2 degrees in a hand washed and dried Jester King snifter. Final temperature 56.3 degrees.
Appearance – 4.
First pour – Medium Amber (SRM 12), clear.
Body – Amber Brown (SRM 18), clear. When rear-lite, red and clear with a plethora of effervescence.
Head – Average (Maximum 3.2 cm, aggressive center pour), floral white, fizzy with short retention, diminishing to a three mm crown fed by effervescence and a thin partial cap. Second pour produces a 1.5 cm head and raises the sediment.
Lacing – None.
Aroma – 4 – Initially a bit vinous and fruity with some weak cherry and oak, no malt, no hops, no yeast.
Flavor – 4.25 – Taste follows the nose but slightly acidic with tannic acid, no malt, no hops, no yeast. No ethanol (6.5 % ABV, as marked on container) taste or aroma. Mild gastric warming toward the end. No dimethylsulfide or diacetyl.
Palate – 4.25 – Medium, watery, lively carbonation.
Final impression and summation: 4.25 Mild cherry is the highlight – red wine barrels show up in the nose with vinous oak and in the flavor with the tannic acid. Overall, nicely tart and flavorful. This is one I’d stock up on if available locally!

 

An aggressive pour reveals a beer that looks like a glass of really well made ice tea and features a sizzling light tan head. The nose smells like a bottle of dry red wine (a cab maybe?) when the bottle’s opened, and then the tart cherries make their presence known, and there’s some earthy notes as well.

The tart cherries are more forward on the taste - WOW!!! They almost elicit a pucker, but the red wine flavor prevents that, and the earthy notes, which I’m assuming are courtesy of the malt bill, guarantee that this flavorful beer will be nicely balanced and keep drawing you back for another sip.

And when the glass is empty, you’re STILL looking for another sip. That to me is the definition of a great beer.