A friend and I got a bottle of Duchesse that we tried last night. We were both pretty excited, since this beer is so consistently talked up as a great example of Flanders Red. Admittedly, we have fairly limited experience with sours (we've both had a handful of experiences with sour beers, a few more with Brett beers), but the beer we had last night could not have been the beer everybody reviews so highly. It tasted like a really sweet balsamic vinegarette, and I couldn't get over feeling like I was sipping down salad dressing; I'm pretty open to "different" beers, but this was no good. I found absolutely no redeeming quality in this. It didn't taste like beer at all, all I got was sweet and vinegar.
So, we checked for a date and found it on the cork: "Exp. date 12/09". My impression was this is a beer that's suitable for aging, so if that is an expiration date, as in it's undrinkable past that date, then this beer must be from many years ago to be bad as of Dec 2009. For being unpasteurized, it also seemed way to sweet if this was an over-ripe product. OR, the date is 2012 Sept, in which case maybe some aging would have helped. If this is the case, then my thought is that they should age the beers a bit before releasing them; the product should be at least quaffable when you buy it.
If you guys have any thoughts, or could let me know if this is how the beer tastes, I'd appreciate it. I'm having trouble seeing what I had last night as being such a highly regarded beer, but perhaps I'm missing something.
So, we checked for a date and found it on the cork: "Exp. date 12/09". My impression was this is a beer that's suitable for aging, so if that is an expiration date, as in it's undrinkable past that date, then this beer must be from many years ago to be bad as of Dec 2009. For being unpasteurized, it also seemed way to sweet if this was an over-ripe product. OR, the date is 2012 Sept, in which case maybe some aging would have helped. If this is the case, then my thought is that they should age the beers a bit before releasing them; the product should be at least quaffable when you buy it.
If you guys have any thoughts, or could let me know if this is how the beer tastes, I'd appreciate it. I'm having trouble seeing what I had last night as being such a highly regarded beer, but perhaps I'm missing something.