New Belgium/Red Rock Brewery Paardebloem is part of the “Lips of Faith” series, an ale brewed with peach juice, grains of paradise and dandelion greens, blended with wood aged beer…

9% ABV – IBU’s: 14

Here is another beer made through collaboration between brewers.  These are always interesting and enticing, sometimes they are very good, but they never quite live up to my expectations of them.  The best one I have had to date is the G’Rauch, actually.  Please note: Red Rock Brewery by itself has a beer called “Paardebloem” as well.

This beer is fucking weird, and not very good.  First, a slight rant to start off: what is “Paardebloem” and why is a beer called that?  It means “dandelion” in Flemish.  I had to look that up.  And the beer is called that because it is made with dandelion greens (you should have figured that out before you read this sentence since it’s in the beer’s label description, dipshit).  Also, Flemish is the language spoken in Northern Belgium.  I had to look that up, too… cue the comments about me being an obnoxious, ignorant American; go ahead, I’m not afraid of you fuckers!  At least credit me for looking it up.  Also, I had to look up how it is pronounced with google translate.

New Belgium/Red Rock Brewery Paardebloem
New Belgium/Red Rock Brewery Paardebloem has a bunch of shit thrown into it, so the idea behind the set up of this picture, according to the Deltoid, is to illustrate that. Hence all the shit… we guess

Did you hear that?  Again, call me an arrogant American ignoramus but if this beer was worth buying again I would never go into a liquor store and ask for it, because I would be afraid the other patrons would think I’m worshipping Satan if they recorded me and played it backwards.

Paardebloem (I am now going to pronounce this out loud every time I type it) is antique gold/bronze in color, and is mostly clear with a slight degree of cloudiness.  The head is thick, snowy white with a dab of fresh pine coloring.  And the aroma contains the sweet and sour scent of peaches as well as a dry, white wine.  Lacing is relatively thick in my glass.  Overall this beer is very lovely and dainty.

This product goes south with its flavor.  It is sour and bitter, but it leans noticeably more to the sour side.  It has a grassy bitterness to it and its profiles consist of white wine, banana, peaches, pears, grapes, and ester alcohol.  It tastes good but not great.  Its description makes it sound more appealing than its flavor, because the sourness and bitterness were boxing out the desirable profiles.  My 2nd glass left even more to be desired, because my palate by then was overwhelmed with the funkiness of the ester and the bitterness of the greens.  It is very dry and has a lot of bubbly carbonation, but is not creamy.  It is like a seltzer.  Lastly, this is advertised as being mixed with wood aged beer, and I did not taste any wooden barrel flavors at all.  I’m not sure I wanted to.

The aftertaste took the experience even lower for me.  It consisted of sourness and bitterness without much flavor. While the flavor contained more sourness, the aftertaste contained mostly a bitter sensation. It did leave me with a wave of warmth in the mouth and throat due to its alcohol content and that was nice, though.

Here is a quick note regarding the bitterness: you may be misled by reading this is rated at 14 IBU’s.  The position on the IBU scale is derived from a measurement of acid from the hops.  This is not hoppy but is quite bitter, especially in the aftertaste, due to its other ingredients.

This would be decent with cheese and crackers, garlic bread, seafood, or paired with pasta and alfredo sauce to be honest.  But by itself it’s not worth visiting (unless my descriptions of its flavors sound appealing to you).  New Belgium’s standard selections are all far better.

Style: I am not rating this on style because this is such a funky, bizarre beer I have nothing to compare it to and probably never will.

Overall: 6/10

The Deltoid has spoken!

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