Cascade Sang Royale

Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 9

2016 edition, 750ml bottle with cork and cage. Hazy copper-ruby colour with a frothy-fizzy beige head that dissipates quickly leaving a small ring. Beautiful aromas of molasses with red wine. Very sour in the mouth with some balsamic vinegar notes. The red beer base is quite enhanced by the Pinot Noir barrel aging. Light tart stays on the tongue. I think I prefer this one over the Sang de Chêne. Dark fruits do come out with time. Very, very nice for a fancy sour ale.

Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 10 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 10

wish list beer, but i didn't know what i was getting. overtaken by a complex mix of wine grapes (cab) and wine oak barrels (pinot and port) this beer smells of dark fruit, tangy almost to the point of being mouth puckering at first, but mellows to a very pleasant funky oakiness. sweet and sour finish. my favorite thing about this beer (and Consecration, the beer it most resembles) is the abv is irrelevant. this could have been 3% or 13% and it wouldn't have mattered. Couldn't tell it was 9%. AWESOME stuff!

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 7

2009 vintage served late in 2011. Wow! Really nice, of the 5 beers I have tried here so far, this is the first that impressed me. Tart and fruity but a wet yet crisp quality that nips the sour in the bud and makes it positively drinkable. The malts seem like they we're vaguely belgian in inspiration, but the hops/yeast/souring process was in no way euro, which ended up with a cleaner drinking sour. This characteristic probably prevents it from getting top marks ever in my book, but also makes it a sour thats much more accessible. Some trace of biscuit, quite dry, medium to thin in body which is supplemented by faint oak, which makes it bigger than it is, and really pulls this beer through. Nice. Great beer... for the style.... mediocre.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

It has taken me quite some time to finally get this beer, after at least 4 visits to the brewpub. One time I actually ordered and came to find out from the bartender shortly after that he had given me the Sange Rouge instead. This beer was dark red brown in color with a reddish off-white head. Sour, mildly funky aroma was pretty common for their beer. Medium body, nice and tart, sharp on the tongue. Really nice. Chocolate and dark fruit flavors with some oak. It lived up to my expectations.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 8

Bottle: Poured a hazy reddish color ale with a large foamy head with good retention and some light lacing. Aroma of oak and slightly sweet cherry with a tart finish is quite enjoyable. Taste is also dominated by oak with some nice cherry notes and some clear tart notes and some balanced acidity with a lingering sweetness which may or may not originate form the port barrel used. Body is quite full with great carbonation. I must admit to being totally shock by the quality of beers form this brewery which I will have to keep seeking again in the future.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

This beer is quite the gusher; I actually lost a couple of ounces before I could react to the foam over. A careful pour into my 25cl tulip glass produces an almost four-finger thick, amber tinged, tan colored head. As the head slowly subsides with a rocky, crag-riddled surface it leaves some nice fat lacing on the sides of my glass. The beer is a dark plum color that shows a hazy, rich red hue when it is held up to the light. The aroma is quite vinous and smells of dark fruit; notes of prunes, raisins, lots of black currant, as well as some bright cherry and berry notes (this last reminds me of blackberries, blueberries and mulberries). There is a backdrop of toasty oak in the nose as wellas a touch of toasted grain effect; some tannin, a spicy oak character and a hint of vanillin are noticeable. The nose on this beer is pretty nice, it is well integrated and rich smelling, though I could wish for a touch more complexity.

The beer tastes lightly tart up front. It has a palate fullness and heft to it, which a lively, effervescent carbonation tries to offset; it is actually a bit excessively carbonated, but the body of the beer still stands up to this excess quite well. A nice sourness can almost be bracing, it couples with a tannic bite towards the finish that makes this that much more puckering. Spicy oak and wood flavors play a more prominent role than they did in the nose, but the fruitiness is much more subdued in the flavor; this last is likely because this beer is quite dry tasting, with little residual sugars. Still the fruit notes are noticeable here and remind me of a dry, fruit forward red wine; notes of berry, dark-concentrated plum, tart currant flavors, some washed out cherry skin and even some port-like fruit notes are noticeable here. As the beer warms up the fruit does become more evident though. There is a tart bite from the acidity that is most lactic, but there also seemed to be a rounded acid influence from the fruit character. Especially after the beer settles down (from the initial carbonation level), the texture is lush and structed from the tannic influence, yet it is still quite drinkable; velvet-like and silky seem like apt adjectives for this brew. There is some spice character here as well and a bit of a biting note that is contributed by the rich fruit / malt character (sort of reminiscent of a spicy fruit skin flavor).

I like that this has a nice oak backbone to it; that and the tartness really helps to bring a suave balance to the jam-like, rich fruit character. I paired this beer with some fish tacos for the last 25cl and this brings out a peppery spiciness from the oak as well as more of the wood-like flavors, but what it really does is accentuate the rich fruit character that is in this beer. This is a really nice, rich, complex, layered beer that retains its ample drinkability. A fantastic beer, that I am quite happy to have polished a bottle off of.