Lagunitas Nuevo Noir

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

So, this is what a Belgian style brown ale looks like. The colour is diarrhea brown if anybody cares, certainly not my favourite colour. The aroma consists of caramel, yeast, and weak funky hops. Flavour is all over the place...some nutty notes, some funky notes, and some yeasty notes. Who commissioned this?

Aroma: 5 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 4 | Flavor: 5 | Overall: 5

Don't really got much good to say about this beer, but then again I'm not really a fan of the lagunitas brew's. The beer pours a dark brown and looks deep red when held up to the light, the little bit of head that did appear vanished completely before I could even get the brew to my nose for a smell. The beer smelt slightly chocolatey and nutty and was very week smelling, but I did enjoy it. The taste was very strong and aggressive but was boring with no complexities, chocolate and yeast with and some very noticeable alcohol is about all I notice. The beer also felt thin and some how slimy, I really have no clue how this is possible. I guess it's not really a bad beer, its just nothing special and there are a lot better choices out there for you to drink.

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

10.27.05 Bomber. Deep copper amber pour with lasting, small tan head. Aroma is lightly bready and nutty, banana bread I guess, and also a bite of lemony aroma. Pretty thin bodied and light, a bite of yeasty spice, and a relatively dry finish. Lingering metal and light acidity. Certainly nothing to write home about, but exactly what I was looking for tonight...mindless and plain.

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

Poured a reddish brown,no head no lacing.Lightly fruity a faint aroma of pears. malty flavor,dried fruits liquoreux like a porto...Light carbonation velvety mouthfeel a treat to the palate...The label great great great!Just because of that i wanted to buy that beer,i just wish now to see more labels from that brewery.Only one thing i have a problem why calling it a Belgian ale?For me it taste nore as a very good brown ale.

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

Very dark red and orange colored body. The head is light tan. The aroma is cinnamon, iced tea and old tangerines. The taste is sweet with honey and some rich toffee. This reminds me of sweetened tea. The taste also has some light brown sugar. An incredibly light mouthfeel with smooth and soft cabonation. I love the creamy, yet smooth mouthfeel. I wished that this had a little more funkiness or tartness to it.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 8

I enjoyed this beer. It's like a 'Brown Ale' meets 'Belgian'. Nice looking pour, w/ a 1cm off white head, and a clear bronze body. Roastiness & sweetness. Give it a try

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 10 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Pours wtih a deep amber body topped by a medium thick head with some lacing. It’s sweet, malty and spicey wtih a slight hop note. Full bodied, warming and tingly.

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

Yet another odd seasonal (read: one-shot?) from Lagunitas, an outfit that I've respected for quite a while, even if they seem to be a little "hit-and-miss". But always a sucker for the new n' weird, I grabbed a bottle at BevMo, and popped it open on a quiet Thursday night.

Typical 22 oz'er. With the typical Lagunitas presentation. Typical white-on-black nonsense on the side. Nothing new so far.

This is along the lines of a typical Brown Ale, that happens to have had the typical yeast swapped out and replaced with slightly more estery and complex Belgian-ish strain. A rather unattenuative strain apparently, as will be discussed shortly.

Reddish/amber in appearence, with a steady if not monumental layer of foam. Some lacing inside my Stone Old Guardian glass as I progress through this beer. Uneventful aroma, too. So far, not a whole lot that sets this beer apart from the pack.

At first, this sets off on the right foot, flavor wise. Enough appealing things going on in the flavor profile to perk up the senses a bit. Maltier than I expected, but not so much so as to become distracting. All the hopping seems to be the background (i.e. the start of the boil), since this actually reminded me more of an Altbier than anything from the Low Countries.

But that leads me to where this beer tends to fall apart, IMO. The mouthfeel is decent enough, at first. But with each and every sip, the cloying sweetness of the aftertaste piles up in my mouth -- "feeling" a beer leaving sweetness behind on your teeth is not what I enjoy, I'm sorry to say. Major deal breaker, in my book.

A beer that starts off slow, gains a bit of momentum for a while, but loses steam quickly around the bend and in the home stretch.

[Homebrewer Geek Interlude]:
[One thing that Lagunitas does that is quite helpful for reviewing a beer is to publish almost all of the vital stats. But it is here that I have a raise an eyebrow. If the O.G. was 1.076, and the ABV% is 6.3% (both puiblished on the label), that would mean the Final Gravity would be around 1.028(!?). Any homebrewer who's been around for a while will tell you that 1.028 is no-where near "done", and is entirely too sweet for bottling/kegging/etc. While this doesn't taste quite as sweet as what I normaly equate 1.028 to, a few simple calculations back up my own opinion that this is just too damn sweet...]

"...The tragic tyranny of beer," indeed.

Music: Iced Earth's "Night Of The Stormrider"
//TB

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

Very attractive burnt brown coloured ale with a smallish "coffee’n’creme" coloured head..great lacing down the glass. The aroma is rather curious though..I certainlly can sense what they were trying to accomplish, but what no doubt is meant to be Belgian style spicy aroma comes off as dry roasted peanuts after a while..there is howeever some estery aromas that show through nicelly. mmm nice Belgian spicy taste up front almost over whelming the caramel malts ..nice then it sort of breaks down near the end of the mouthful and goes bitter. the mouthfeel was very velvety and pleasantly smooth. Over all a really odd beer a brown ale with belgian hints..its taken me a half hour to decide ..yes I like this beer.

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

Tasted on Tap at 2005 OBF. Dark brown color. Aroma is candi sugar and brown sugar. A medium to full bodied Belgian Ale. Malts are fruity, estery and sweet. Lots of dark fruit and brown sugar flavors. Fairly sweet, consistent with style. Yet a big departure from the usual Lagunitas offering, where the hell are the hops? Mouthfeel is full and round. Finish is clean and sweet. Aftertaste is slightly sweet.