577. The Bruery Oude Tart

Since it is my birthday, I’m pulling out the fancy beer. The last time I had Oude Tart was about 20 minutes before I was poured into the backseat of my Shuttle Express ride to LAX. You all remember that day, right? I know I do! I’m even using the same glass I got from that day. How it survived my drunken plane flight home is beyond me. But it did, and here we are something like almost three years later. Anyway, I’ll refrain from regaling you all with more of my quasi-obsessive Bruery fixation stories, and instead move on to the beer itself. Oh wait, you really do want to hear more? I wasn’t expecting that answer! Well, if you can’t figure out how to track down the other posts through using the search engine above, then the terrorist really have won. How’s that feel?

Oude Tart pours a clear orange-ish brown with red highlights; there was just the hint of a tan head that glazed the surface of the beer, followed by a decently lasting ring around the edge of the glass. The nose is musty earth and stone fruit, followed by oak and red licorice. There are hints of both lactic and acetic tartness in the nose—my cheeks did start to blush before drinking it—but it is decently behind some of the other aromas, specifically the creamy oak and stone fruit. In the flavor, both the sourness and tartness are much more forward, opening with a tart citric acid bite mixed with lactic sourness as well as leather and stone fruit—cherry and plum specifically, but also fig. The oaks come out in the middle, as does the touch of musty earth, which was more prominent in the nose. There are some residual brown sugar and burnt sugar flavors that transition into the acetic vinegar finish, along with a gentle tannic oak bite that lingers pleasantly. The body is thin, as to be expected, although the pleasant oak character helps round the beer on the tongue, and the vinous character of the beer also adds to the perception of mouthfeel, along with a slight creaminess. While the flavors are good, it could use more depth of malt complexity to balance the tartness in the beer—after the oak and sourness, it is a bit uni-dimensional. Still, the sharp tartness brings rosettes of sweat to my upper cheeks, and I do love that! So here’s to being another year closer to my death! 

From the bottle: “Pleasantly sour with hints of leather, dark fruit, and toasty oak from extended aging in oak barrels.”

ABV: 7.5%

(11/4/2013)