Oud Beersel Oude Faro
Brouwerij Oud Beersel

finally splurged and got a box of lambic from these guys, so glad i did, what a cool format for these, portable, savable, sharable, a real party in a bag. have not had a ton of faro, i think those are mostly draft traditionally, not packaged, and also usually lower alcohol than this one is, surprised to see this come in as strong as it does. the color is deep, molasses brown almost. slick and sort of greasy looking, a patchy airy little bit of head, but definitely minimally carbonated, some shine, some legs suggesting residual sugar. the nose is weird, exceedingly sour right away, lemony, old bread, light fruit vinegar, and almost flemish bacterial thing, the candy sugar is evident, and the oak is strong, vinous, a hint of balsamic, raisin, toffee. lots of sweetness in the taste for how sour it is, molasses and raisin and palm sugar to me, definite vinegar but some lambic funk too among all the acid, almost like a dubbel meets a lambic, bready and cooked, long boiled it seems, less of the aged hop thing here, more sugary and malty, but plenty unique on the ferment too. shockingly weird and different, not sure what i expected, but it wasnt this. bran muffin, sour fruit, port wine, hazelnut, rum, earthy and curious, i dont know if i love it, but i cant set it down either. a bag of this is way more than we needed, but it was fun to share with some new friends, and this is definitely one of the more unique beers ive had in this space. so sweet, and so sour. unlike anything else out there, not for everyone.

Pour from a .... box! Brown murky pour with a khaki bubbly head. Dark grains, mulled berries, and most of all balsmic vinegar nose that is strangely sweet. Maybe I just don't like faros, because this is another where there is no depth of flavor at all, balsamic vinegar, brown sugar dusting, and mulled stale berries. Feel is vinegary and sour with decent kick of acidity to boot, light and thin.

 

 

Made a special trip to Thistle Draftshop in suburban Houston for this. My first and only faro to date.

Poured from a chilled box ( no kidding!) into a snifter. A clear reddish brown color with a quickly fading head and no significant lacing. Smell and taste of sour apples. A bit earthy with some lime. It is actually quite a refreshing beer! I would look forward to more faro beers and more beers from this brewery.

A 3.1L bag-in-box with a best before date of 15th November 2019, poured into a 3 Fonteinen stemmed glass.

Appearance: A slightly hazy brown orangey colour with pretty much no head and no lacing.

Aroma: Lightly tart, sour, funky, oak, with some dark fruit like aromas, maybe plum and grapes.

Taste: Sour, funky, oak, acidic, vinegar, lemon, with light notes of mixed berries.

Mouthfeel: Light bodied with no carbonation.

Overall: This was very different to any other Faro that I’ve tried in that it’s not sweet at all, but still quite nice especially with the mixed berry notes. The aroma was great, but the lack of carbonation was not really my thing. Still an interesting Faro though.