Name – Goudenband
Country – Belgium
Type – Flanders Oud Bruin

The baseball playoffs kicked off yesterday.  The Rays beat up the Rangers more than Jon Jones does to his opponents.  The Tigers and Yanks were rained out but today is the big day.  My Phils start the march towards reclaiming our World Series title as we take on the Cardinals.  May the best team that wears red and is from the city named Philadelphia win.

And with good baseball coming up it demands the need for good beer.  I’m starting things off with Liefmans Goudenband.  I mean look at it.  This Oud Bruin is dressed for the big time.  A nice blue paper cover makes it stand out from the rest.

I popped the cork from the bottle to find the year 2010 on the it.  Score!  This one is already around a year old.  I’m liking the sounds of this so far.

It pours a reddish brown color into my Bruery tulip glass.  A good sized tan head sits on top and slowly disappears back into the liquid.

The nose is not as in your face as I thought it would be.  I guess the age helped there.  Definite smells of vinegar and cherries in there.  A little funk as well is present.

In the taste you get more vinegar and cherries but other fruit flavors pop up as well.  I get hints of grapes and green apples, even a slight bit of lemony.  It then gets a bit funky and woody to finish off.  The body is pretty thin.  I was expecting it to be a bit fuller.

Wonderful sour and to think this has been sitting on the shelves for a year.  Oh well more for me!  And at around $8 for a 750 ml bottle I think there is little wrong with this beer.

If you enjoy sours and have yet to try this one then you absolutely must take a look for it the next time you’re in your beer store.  You probably won’t know how old yours is until you pop the cork but I can’t imagine you would be disappointed by a new bottle of this over and aged one anyway.

Grade – A-