Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7.5
Not bad. Quite a bit of salty, twangy sweat, juicy lemon, bit of funk, throat burn, vanilla, pale oak. Dash of salt throughout. Tart, acidic finish. Not too complex. Enjoyable.
Kraddel (15844) reviewed Adelaar Oude Geuze from Brouwerij-Stokerij Sako 2 months ago
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 5.5 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 5.5
Pours unclear warm amberblonde. Medium, yet stable, pillowy white head. Scent is brett, cheesy, funk. Taste is very cheesy, isovaleric acid feast. Brett and funk, wood. Only medium on acidity. Needs some refinement...
Appearance - 9 | Aroma - 8.5 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
Magnificent purple beer under a dwindling cyclamen head. Intense horseblanket and ripe sour cherries, and even some (unripe) blackberries. Lactic acid, sharpish vinous nose. Intense kriek flavour, also as a sour cherry reduction with... red wine? Again a flavour as blackberries, brambles; Feels rather well-bodied despite the acids; very well-carbonated, fruitslick. Superb gem of a kriek, completely off the beaten track. I guess it are the dark malts that lend it an absolutely unseen depth.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8.5 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
Thick dark-cream head over brown, almost black beer. "Warm" lambic aromas, horseblanket, immortelles, sour orange, ever so slightly (tomato cream) soupy, sweet cherries, spices. Wood, dark, unfermentable sugars, again sweet cherries, hint @ roast. Farmyard, wet wood. Finish is indeed sweet and smoked. Seems to have more 'bite' than a regular gueuze; no apparent acidthinning if acidburn present; very well-carbonated. Disconcerting. Quite good, but one is put on the wrong foot at every turn.
Leighton (34941) reviewed El Ambiguo from Brouwerij-Stokerij Sako 3 months ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8.5 | Flavor - 8.5 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
Smooth. Some vanilla, white grape, sherbet, mild acidity, pale bread, tangerine. Mild pale qoody dryness. Quite drinkable. Balanced and well drinkable.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
Inspired by Ulika, a Belgo-Croatian wine producer experimenting with unusual maturing techniques, this is Bogaerden (or Adelaar) geuze by Sako, aged at twenty meters deep in the Adriatic Sea on the shores of the city of Poreč for a year. However bizarre that may sound, it is actually not even the only geuze that has aged under the sea: no doubt Cantillon's Iroise (served at Quintessence) must have served as a source of inspiration here too, because what are the odds of something completely new happening to lambic (and beer in general) within the same year, of course... Anyway, since Iroise was eventually added here as a separate entry, I guess this one deserves the same treatment, even though Sako - contrary to Cantillon - did not even bother to come up with a new hangtag and simply attached the existing Bascule geuze hangtag to the bottle, which is why I hesitated about the name of this product: is it De Bascule or Bogaerden? Note also that the specification 'Adriatico' to refer to the Adriatic Sea is used in the media but nowhere on the packaging... Anyhow: the bottle itself, of course, showed very fascinating signs of spending so much time on the bottom of the sea - we even found a dead Hexaplex trunculus still attached to it, a sea snail indigenous to those waters. And even though the muselet had rusted, both it and the cork were still firmly in place - even taking some effort to be removed, but when that was achieved, no one in the room was prepared for the huge amount of gushing that ensued; it is said that the constant rocking back and forth of the bottles in the sea (due to currents) has its own special effect on the wild yeasts inside - it seems this has rendered the yeasts all stressed up and overly active... Anyway, after losing 1/4 of the bottle: snow white, medium thick, irregular and opening head on a hazy apricot blonde robe with orangey glow. Aroma indeed with a very light 'sea breeze' - even more detectable than I was expecting, thinly draped over the usual impressions of lemon rind, gooseberry, unripe peach, sourdough, old wood, old dusty yellow curry powder, green apple peel, dry hay and, again, something vaguely reminiscent of raw mussels. Tart onset yet 'mals', unripe apricot, sour grape, lemony touch - sharper and drier than I recall from the 'ordinary' Bascule geuze but in line with the regular Bogaerden (formerly Adelaar); finely tingling effervescence, mellow sourdoughy-bready core under yoghurty-fruity lactic tartness, unripe stonefruit accents and woodiness, with a thin yet assertive lemony edge persisting. Under this all lurks a very light touch of saltiness - the people present at the table who actually had Cantillon's Iroise testified that in comparison, this Adriatico geuze showed a much clearer effect from the sea for some reason. Too bad for the violent gushing, but generally a very interesting experiment indeed - I must thank my neighbour Jo for fixing these unique bottles!
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 6.5 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
From the bottle at a tasting at Beer Out, Forlì, Italy. Pours light amber, medium transparent, with little fine foam. Aroma is very particular, herbal, almost recalling some dishwashing soap. Body is average, with moderate carbonation. Taste is medium-high sour. Final is average, but with some astringency.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 6.5
Pours with a huge foam, unclear strawyellowblonde underneath. Foam itself collapses quickly, looks soapy mostly. Aroma is herbal/spicy, but manageable. Can't quite put my finger on the spice(s), but it has a peppery, woody tone to me. Mild lambic funk underneath. Taste is sharp, tart, christmassy-like spices - but not gingerbread exactly either, perhaps this clove / cardamom / 'pepernoten' is part of a bigger blend of spices? Medium acidic, realtively simple concidering the style. It's not at all a bad beer, but it's less to my taste than I had hoped, not an exceptional base by any means. But the blend of spices and the intensity thereoff is very well balanced, so I guess this is more of a 'if you like it, you like it' kind of beer.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7.5
Bottle. Color: Dark purple, purple-pink head. Aroma: Dark cherry, some rural funk. Taste: Quite dense and smooth mouthfeel. Moderate to over moderate tartness, dark cherry, cherry kernel, oak wood, subtle rural funk, hints of roasted malt and Cognac Interesting.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 8
Sako, now much more known for its lambic products but originally (like Den Herberg) a brewer of ales, has recently dug up the old brand name of Bogaerden again to rebrand all its products - including this one, a cherry lambic made with lambics that were brewed with dark malts by means of experiment (also used in a 'dark geuze' which I still need to taste). Bottle from Huis van de Geuze shared at a private tasting event at my place. Medium thick, open, dusty pink-tinged, eventually dissolving head on a very dark, hazy burgundy robe with brownish tinge. Aroma of rich cherry wine and ripe (sour) cherries, wet old wood, brown bread, redcurrant jam (but without the sugar), oxidized red wine, interesting background hints of wet asphalt, bayleaf, almond, vanilla and black tea. Tart onset, filled with lovely sour cherry acidity, juiciness and richness, side notes of gooseberry and red plum with prickly carbonation (perhaps a bit 'coarse' and large-bubbled for the style) but still 'fluffy' and agreeable in mouthfeel; brown bread crust-like maltiness, obviously weighing heavier here than in a normal 'pale' lambic with even toasty effects that bring the 'sour stout' idea to mind, but not evolving into roasted bitterness; instead, the cherries fulfil their promise of juiciness till the end, with a lemony sour edge paired with light earthy notes (also from the old hops) and woody tannins. Cherry wine in sour stout- or oud bruin-like form, as it were - as the very few experiments with 'dark spontaneous fermentation' in the past years have shown, these beer types often come to mind when dark malts are used in lambic (if you can still call the result lambic of course - but I will leave that to the purists); yet it still manages to remain very recognisable as an 'oude kriek' of sorts, which is possibly what I would identify it like in a blind tasting. Interesting, and much more appealing than I was expecting, to be frank.
gave a cheers!