On tap at Ambulance, warm-fermented Kellerbier piles Belgian candi sugar to subtle French farmhouse-styled lemon spicing and dry rye malting. But its rye influence is restricted and, stylistically, this biere de garde’s as nebulous as its summery strong pale ale category.
Ambitious Belgian strong ale aged on French oak (and referenced as a biere de garde) brings wintry spices to the fore as candi-sugared nutmeg, clove, cardamom, star anise and ginger seasoning embellishes ripened dried fruiting as well as glazed pecan notions. Sarsaparilla and Jagermeister illusions sneak thru latent alcohol burn. A welcome winter warmer.
On tap at The Oath, middling copper-hazed moderate-to-medium-bodied (8.5% ABV) warm fermented ale lets modest toffee-chocolate malting and murky fig-pear conflux receive dank cellar musk over toasted graining. A bit unresolved.
On tap at Ambulance, eccentric French farmhouse ale with foraged chanterelle mushrooms and toasted maple bark fermented with mixed yeast cultures and aged in red wine barrels ‘yields apricot flavor’ over earthen truffle mustiness and dank cellar musk. Honeyed herbal spicing and vermouth-like alcohol whir sweeten the back end.
On tap at Ambulance, nonchalant saison (sessionable 4% ABV light body posing as a biere de garde) with toned-down lemon spritz, mild oats-dried graining, pasty pale malting and watery celery vegetalia seems nebulous. Nothing bad, just lacks overall depth and clarity.
On tap at Ambulance, sour-creamed toffee influence scoured by bitter lemon-juiced white wine tartness and rustic barnyard leathering. Lactic oaken vanilla tannins reinforce vinous wild yeast sourness over acidulated pale malts.
Sugary orange-bruised banana daiquiri entry and honeyed malt sweetness contrast lemon-rotted black pepper herbage. Clean-watered carbolic spritz allows bittersweet citrus finish to glisten.
On tap at Ambulance, unconvincing lager-strained biere de garde yeast and downplayed Mosaic-Galaxy- hopped citrus perfuming dried up by barnyard-parched spelt, oats and straw wheat rusticity. Tart lemon-bruised bittering regales mildly acidic sour saison sashay.
On tap at Ambulance, unspecific biere de garde tries to merge phenol alcohol astringency with musty dewiness, fig-sugared dried fruiting and spiced toffee nicety, but seems ill-defined and characterless.
Vaguely defined winter warmer brings blustery medicinal alcohol heat to restrictive black cherry, sugarplum and raspberry illusions as well as murky brown-sugared molasses sugaring, distant nutmeg-cinnamon tingle and caramelized oats base. Ample alcohol astringency consumes and coarsens the unspecific dried fruit-spiced finish.
A meal in a bottle! Peppery Belgian yeast infests lemon-dried herbal resilience, tart orange-spiced respite and rye-toasted honeyed oats spine. Well-balanced, if strangely designated, biere de garde, seemingly crosses dewy Extra Special Bitter crisping with herbal white-peppered Abbey ale musk.
On tap at Ambulance, saison-styled biere de garde (with rather lull 7.3% ABV) sends honey-sweetened sour lemon tartness above mild woody Chinook hop bittering, polite Vienna-pilsner malting and fizzy carbolic phenols. Orange-rotted candied pineapple subsidy sidles wispy earthen barnyard acridity and herbal nonchalance.
