Liefmans Goudenband

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Price: £5.65

Description An old complex brown ale in the famous paper-wrapped bottle, this time white with navy badge, 8%. This beer is to be aged and savoured the beers in the devonshire Cat were bottled as far back as 1997 and the mature taste of goudenband certainly shines through. Goudenband (Gold Riband), is a sour tart beer not to everyone's liking and demonstrates the brewers decision to sweeten the style up with cherries (Kriek) and rasberries (Frambozen). This beer has an extra six months maturation over the fruit counterparts. Liefmans Goudenband is easily one of the world's most complex beers. The colour is sort of amber/brown as you'd expect of a Flemish brown ale. From that starting point you go on to get loads of characters you might never expect from a beer. The nose has metals,  salty cheesy things like provolone/parmesan/feta, as well as tart fruity notes and hints of wood and maybe even smoke. You get most of these aromatic characters in the flavour too. Some other odd flavours you might find here include leather, rye bread (with caraway seeds), pomegranate, alfalfa hay, and a somewhat citrusy note like a cross between guava and passion fruit.  50cl bottle.