Ding Points: 78.00

Pour: 70.00, Nose: 70.00, Palate: 80.00, Mouth: 90.00, Global: 80.00

Tasting Notes:

12.7 oz bottle that is REALLY heavy. Very thick glass on this one. Annoyingly hard to remove cork under the cage, eventually meant that I had to extract it with a ‘Lazy Fish’ corkscrew. Decent pop – at least we have some carbonation!

Pour looks as expected with a small, poorly retained head and some dark, turbid, brown notes and a little sediment. Lace = zero, with a thin film settling on the beer.

Lost Abbey, Red Poppy

The nose and tastes are frankly pretty mild considering some of the things that I have heard about the beer. Ethanoic acid aromas are not as strong as reports would suggest, and although this is nowhere near the sweet and sour experience of say, a Goudenband, it still swerves away from a puckering, acid like experience of some of the authentic beers in the style.

Carbonation is lively and adds to the experience. A fairly light, drying apple acidity that reminds me of a Devonshire cider. Finish does not attack the palate in the bitter, hyper-low pH way that some of these beers do. Red Poppy is a little more drying than most, but it doesn’t rape & pillage the palate like say, a Cantillon Kriek (yes, different beer and different style, I KNOW!). There are a lot of drying grape skins here, and a decent splash of grapefruit too. Not a vicious acidity, much more of a drying tartness.

Nice beer but frankly very, very poor value for money.

Other: $13.99 from Toco Giant, Toco Hills, Atlanta, GA, USA.