Blåbær

I've had bottles with plastic aromas and flavors as well.

 

that's interesting... come to think of it, there was a beer i had recently (in the past year or two) that had a distinct battery acid smell to it. i can't remember if it was 2004 lou pepe framboise, or some AWA. weird.

 

I had a 04 LP Framboise about a year ago and thought it could have melted holes into my digestive system.

 

I got the same jammy flavor from the bottle of Blueberry I had side by side with Lebleu. Upland was much more fruit forward, and I found the Lebleu to have more of a refined tartness to it. Having had Blabaer, I would say that Lebleu would be a closer match of the two.

 

I had a 2010 bottle in 2010 that was all band-aid/latex.

 

From limited experience and the collection of comments from others, I'm convinced that Blabaer needs ~1yr in the bottle before being consumed. The 2012 was not at all great. Guys around me who had tasted the 2011 fresh mentioned that the '11 was the same way as the '12 when fresh, and that the '11 is currently a much different and fantastic beer.

I guess I'll cast a vote for the '12 tasting like plastic and rotten berries.

 

I just got a 750ml of 2011 Blabaer for my Ann through Cam's Unwanted Whales. Have never had Blabaer, but this ended up being a straight trade that I think both parties are very happy with. Glad to hear the 2011 is in fine shape, I can't imagine it will be too long before mine is opened. Having had a decent selection of Cantillon lambic, I can't wait to see if Blabaer is that much better. Given how hard it is to acquire, I hope it's great.

 

I gotta agree with you on this one Sean. I've had every release fresh and aged and apart from the 07 I prefer every single one of them with at least a year of age on them. Honestly I think that the 09 is drinking the best recently in my opinion. The fresh Blueberry, or fruit that they use similar to blueberries (it's not the same as US blueberries) has that kinda synthetic, plastic-y flavor. Still good in my opinion but almost too sweet and fruity for me, after at least a year the sour characteristics start to be more present and the fruit is still there but not as strong.

As far as trading goes a lot of people have hit the nail on the head that it's hard to trade these bottles. Most US traders that have multiples of these have done so by building relationships with overseas trading partners in Denmark. At least this is true in my case. It's hard to retrade something from someone you consider to be a friend now, as corny as that sounds. Also a lot of people have mentioned also that most of the bottles people would offer for these. Most people with Blabaer already have or by some chance someone has one that doesn't have a large cellar then they are going to highly covet the bottle. I prefer to just open these with buddies or people that haven't tried it. Trading is a pain sometimes, tastings are more fun and everyone is happy in the end.