Biere De Garde
Pump House Brewery

 

 

 

 

 

Chestnut brown with well-formed head. Malty, full- bodied, complex. Spicy finish. Medium carbonation. To be savoured. My favourite Pump House beer.

 

A super nice beer

This is a nice moderate IBU beer, not too bad

Serving Type: 341 mL Bottle

A- Pours a clear reddish amber with a 1/2 finger white head with excellent retention. Light patches of lacing on the glass.

S- Sugary bread (maybe shortbread?) and a light fruity esters (lemon and a bit of strawberry).

T- Sweet and fruity yet a good hoppy punch is present. The hops featured remind me more of an APA. Well balanced and tasty.

M- Medium-Heavy Body with Moderate carbonation. Both work really well here.

O- An excellent Biere de Garde that is easy drinking and extremely flavourful (even at 6.5%).

Sent to me by Maxwell Starr beer reviews. Really bready brew. Spiciness from the yeast and hops, fruity characters, and a sweet, chewy body. Caramel, dark fruit like a plum or raisin, apple, biscuit malts and a pepper-like finish. A well done, well balanced beer.

341ml bottle, part of the six-packs they are sold in out here in Alberta. Calling it a bière de garde in the name, and then a 'Belgian Saison' in the sub-label is somewhat incongruous, mais non?

This beer pours a clear, bright red-brick amber hue, with four fingers of puffy, densely foamy, and lightly bubbly ecru head, which leaves some sexy spackled snow rime lace around the glass as it slowly ebbs away.

It smells of rather sweet bready, doughy pale malt, sassy, but respectful yeast, muddled sugary citrus, a soft hard water flintiness, and pleasant leafy, weedy, and mildly grassy noble hops. The taste is once again big on the morning bakery goodness - rising dough and toasty, crackery caramel - more understated citrusy orchard fruit, a still heady minerality, and more leafy, earthy, and wet hay-like hoppy bitterness.

The carbonation is rather light in its easy-going effervescence, the body a solid middleweight for either purported style, and well smooth, with a generally unassailed and burgeoning creaminess. It finishes on the sweet side, sure, but moderated by unseen (and tasted, yippee!) yeast, a restrained fruitiness, and cloaked alcohol.

I can't claim to have encountered many true to form versions of this venerable old-world style (Jolly Pumpkin and Stillwater can go take a flying Belgo-Franco leap, AFAIC). Anyways, one tasty affair when judged on its own merits, as long as you're ok with a prominent maltiness, and recessed hoppiness - yep, ain't nothin' wrong with that.