Liefmans Goudenband

The next few days of "Sour Beer Week" (similar to Discovery's "Shark Week" if you haven't gathered) will be brought to you from the road. I am currently in St. Louis, MO for a couple nights while I travel toward Milwaukee, WI due to a death in the family (it happens).

Tonight I bring you another Old Brown from Belgium. Liefmans is a fairly commonly available company, with a line of fruity beers. With this in mind, when I saw that they made a sour, I was quite intrigued and I had to pick it up. So let's see how it is, yeah?

Goudenband (which I have no idea what it means in whichever of the languages of Belgium it is in) pours dark mahogany from the corked and caged 750 mL bottle, and has a thick, fluffy tan head. The aroma is of many different fruits, including a couple types of cherries, raisins, plums, and dates, not to mention that it is sour. And has subtle hints of chocolate.

The taste is a blend of sweet and sour, with sour coming out on top by a hair, and there are a lot of those aroma flavors present in the taste as well. The dominant taste is sour fruits, though, but the sweetness from the malt also can be detected. The body is not too thick, nor too watery, which, for the style, is pretty spot on. The feel in the mouth, the texture, is velvety smooth and the carbonation is rather soft, despite the large head. The aftertaste, the finish, is sour with some subtle sweetness that pops up every once and a while. I wonder how many more sours you all can take from me...

Liefmans (part of the Moortgat family)
Goudenband
TCSH - 8.5/10
Aka - A pleasant surprise

Dallas