All About Beer Magazine

Beer Talk

Bam Noire

Published May 2009, Volume 30, Number 2

• Roger Protz

  This "dark farmhouse ale" is powerfully reminiscent of a Belgian sour red with its pungent nose of sour dough bread, peppery hops and tart fruit. The beer is bottle-conditioned and has a hazy chestnut color and a heavy collar of foam. Sour fruit, burnt grain and bitter hop resins build in the mouth followed by a dry, lingering finish dominated by spicy malt, tangy fruit and spicy hops. A beer that is complex with great depths of flavor.

• Garrett Oliver

  Not quite noire, more russet-brown. The foam leaps out of the beer before it reaches the glass. The head is huge and sustained. The nose is an earthy, spicy riot—burnt sugar, dark fruit, mint, hay, and more than a whiff of horses. The hop attack is restrained and the palate emerges flinty-dry, with a quinine-like bitterness. Through all this, it's light and nimble, even graceful. It signs off with a funky flourish and a quick suggestion of acidity. An individualistic vision in a glass, and a fine one. Serve it with beef Carpaccio or steak tartare.