Got back from a weekend at the parents’ home in Iowa with all my siblings for an early 60th Anniversary celebration. Also picked up some Iowa beers that I’m posting to the Ratebeer sidebar down there to your right. And the night after I got back, I was able to quickly do a new video review of a beer sent to me for my comment. Pleased to say I’ve been able to rush these videos through “post-production in just a few minutes now.
Goose Island sent me, via Über, a bottle of their Foudre Red, a wild Flanders Red ale that has been on draft around town. This edition is being sold in bottles, but only at their Fulton Street brewery tap room. This was part of their “Fourdre Project” series, a beer fermented and aged six months in the brewery’s oak foudre barrels. Then 12 months of aging in bourbon barrels.
I popped the bottle (tagged “42/2330”) and got a mild nose of tart beer. Not much cherry as they suggest, at least in the smell, but I can at least catch a bit of oak. The pour is a deep mahogany brown, almost opaque, with a fizzy soda-pop head that doesn’t stick around long. The fizziness helps emphasize the oak and tartness in the taste. The taste is kind of subtle. There is some vanilla from the bourbon barrel aging. The tartness of the beer suggests some acidulated wheat malt of a Berliner Weisse.
The total effect is rather light as barrel-aged beers go, blame that 6.6% abv. It works by itself, or with meats and cheeses. I hoping this post comes out while there are still bottles available. Otherwise, watch for later batches, or the occasional tap version.
