Belle-Vue Gueuze

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 4 | Flavor: 5 | Overall: 6

Somewhat opaque dark copper color with off-white lacing foam head. Aroma is light cherrie. Taste is hard to place, not nice. Bit carbonated. (Velp 201402)

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 6

C: clear brown, tan head, effervescent
A: funky fruit, yeast, sour grains
P: thin to medium
F: funk, raspberry, yeast, earth tones
O: The raspberry is present, but obscured, somewhat ruining the experience

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 6

Date on the bottle of September 2007; Sampled April 2008
Pours into my 25cl tulip glass with an initially four-finger thick, light tan colored head that slowly subsides with a varied, textured surface and lots of lacing on the sides of the glass. The beer is a brilliantly clear, red stained, amber color, but shows a deep copper tinted, bright amber color when held up to the light. The aroma smells tart with notes of sour grapefruit, some green apple notes, some lightly oxidized malt notes of sherry. Only lightly funky with a caramelized mushroom note, with just a hint of barnyard and some musty grain notes. Very soft smelling for a Lambic, but most of the traditional aromatics are here, just more muted than one would expect.

Lightly tart up front, but then a caramel sweetness kicks in. The beer is not overly sweet for say an English Bitter, but it is a bit out of place here. A light lactic acidity provides a mix of flavors resembling sour-grapefruit and apple vinegar. As expected the flavor is not overly funky, in fact it is downright approachable for a Gueuze, the tartness makes this quite drinkable, especially since the light caramel sweetness offsets it; it is missing all that barnyard funk & wild character that I personally like to find in a good example of the style. Some sherry like, oxidized malt notes seem to show up here and are quite atypical of a Lambic (I wonder if they added caramel for sweetness to this and this is what is oxidizing).

Not nearly as bad as I expected, but still not my preference at all for a Lambic. I could see recommending this to someone who is a bit wary of traditional Lambics.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

On tap in Oostende. Flute glass full of delightfully sparkling resin-colored nectar. Awakening carbonation, impressive pouf claiming at least an inch at the top of the glass. Sweetly intoxicating hints of spiked cherry lemonade sour straws.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 6

Bottled. Orange colour with mediumsized white creamy head. Strong sweet aroma of apricot and weak hints of apple. Sweet apricot with hints of apple and hops in aroma. Gets a bit sweeter in finish, but doesn’t leave much aftertaste.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 5 | Overall: 6

Dark gold body with a fluffy white head. The head did give way to islands of foam in the beer. Aroma was souring musty and damp but a hint of something sweet was mixed in also cork was present. Taste was a brief second of sweetness and then a tart sour flavor came in. The flavor is different yet interesting in its own sort-of-way. Smooth and bitter in the mouth, but hard to drink. This is an interesting style of beer. Overall I couldn’t handle too many of this style of beer. Maybe it was this bottle or style but one or the other is not for me. Need to find more of this style to make a better judgement

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

When I bought this beer I expected nothing very good. I was pleasantly surprised. And probably it's the best product fro Lambic family I've ever tried. It has a little sour aroma (well it's quite usual to lambics) and solid yellow amber color. So this beer looks really atractive. First impresion of taste is sour and sweet at the same and after that remains only soft fruit sweetness, but really not that iritating as in krieks. Aftertaste remmebers fruits. Also to mention - quite spicy and original beer. Not that very exotic in appearance (it looks like most beers), but really exclusive in flavor. And for me it's one of the most pleasantly drinkable beers with fruits.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 5 | Overall: 6

This gueze pours with a slightly cloudy amber body topped by a thin white head with little lacing. The aroma is slightly tart, but not as tart as I’d like, with candy apple notes and a little sweetness. The flavor is slightly sweet with sour apple notes. Not what I expect from a gueze. Medium bodied and only slightly dry.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 5 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 5

The beer has a deep amber color. There was absolutely no head when I poured the beer. It has a very tart slightly woody taste. I have read reviews that stated that this beer was sweet. This particular beer was relatively dry.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 6

Deep amber, fair head and lace, fruity malty nose. Start is sweet, middle moderate, acidic, the finish is dry and spicy.