6.2/10
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Appearance 6
Aroma 6
Flavor 6
Texture 6
Overall 7
Orangey-amber colour. Aroma is slightly grapey, raspberryish with leather and horseblanket. Fairly sweet - raspberries with cream - leading to a late, appley tartness. Sweet & sour, sugary, fruity finish. 1989 vintage, tasted at 15 years of age.
Tried
on 17 Aug 2004
at 02:06
5.4/10
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Appearance 6
Aroma 5
Flavor 5
Texture 6
Overall 5.5
[The original Eylenbosch Gueze - vintage 1988 - sampled March 2004] The aroma is both sweet and sour with notes of wood. The color is a hazy amber and it has a fine head. The flavor is both sweet and sour with notes of candy sugar - like a Faro. The notes of sugar makes it a little weird - I wonder if it is the 16 years in the bottle that has done this? For a gueze this is not that good - but as a beer it is OK.
Tried
from Can
on 04 Apr 2004
at 04:34
8.9/10
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Appearance 10
Aroma 8
Flavor 10
Texture 6
Overall 9.5
[keg 10-15 years old] An unclear red beer with a beutiful long lasting and lacing light brown head. The aroma is lovely sweet fruity with notes of raspberries and hints of sourness. The flavor is sour and sweet with notes of fruit and raspberries. The sweetness is the dominating flavor since it is not very sour. An extremely great beer - one of a kind.
Tried
on 11 Mar 2004
at 16:33
9.4/10
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Appearance 10
Aroma 10
Flavor 9
Texture 10
Overall 8.5
1989 version, sampled draught at Akkurat, Stockholm.
Clear red with creamy pink head. Sweet balsamic fresh raspberry aroma. Acidic, but with initial fruit sweetness and really tart finish. Wonderfully balanced and flavourful.
Clear red with creamy pink head. Sweet balsamic fresh raspberry aroma. Acidic, but with initial fruit sweetness and really tart finish. Wonderfully balanced and flavourful.
Tried
on 26 Sep 2003
at 05:26
9.3/10
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Appearance 10
Aroma 10
Flavor 9
Texture 10
Overall 8
1989 version sampled draught at Akkurat, Stockholm.
Brownish red. Balsamic black cherry aroma. Fresh cherryish fruit sweetness balanced by tart acidity. Still so fresh after years! Wonderfully balanced citric acid finish. Perhaps not very complex, but extremely tasty and intense.
Brownish red. Balsamic black cherry aroma. Fresh cherryish fruit sweetness balanced by tart acidity. Still so fresh after years! Wonderfully balanced citric acid finish. Perhaps not very complex, but extremely tasty and intense.
Tried
on 26 Sep 2003
at 05:24
8.3/10
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Appearance 8
Aroma 9
Flavor 8
Texture 8
Overall 8
Mind you, my sample is of indeterminate age. A little bird tells me this still hails from Eylenbosch itself, not from the Keersmaecker factory. Warning 2: even in those days, 'Festival' was a filtered gueuze, not a bottle-conditioned one. It used to be more or less the best of the fake ones. Clear orange-amber. Fluffy dirty-white head, fast gone. Horseblanket, woody, cypress, citrussy, unripe berries as gooseberry or currants in the nose. Very tart taste - mouthpuckering so. Not a trace of oxidation (in a pH of maybe 2.5,...). Fresh lemony, woody-acid flavours. A little bit of licorice retronasal. Very refreshing, but not for the faint-hearted. Mouthfeel is were it fails. It's got the obligatory acidburn - and how - but an unfiltered gueuze would be flunkier, livelier, more interesting. Still quite good. As said, the best of 'the rest'.
Tried
from Bottle
on 03 Sep 2003
at 11:42