New Belgium Brewing Co.
Ft. Collins, CO
Available: AR, CO, KS, MT, NM, OR, TX, WA, WY
This special release is New Belgium’s exploration of classic French and Belgian beers. Available from only January to April, Bière de Mars hopes to aid one in the celebration of the half-winter, half-spring month of March (Mars) with this seasonal brew.
ABV: 6.2
ABW: 5.2
Color: 28.3
Bitterness: 21
Original gravity: 1060
Interesting aromatics: orange zest? coriander? An intriguing beer—the wild mix of grains and lemon verbena is a challenge to one’s taste buds and worth the effort of investigation. The beer demands a second taste, a third, and more. A very quenching brew with pleasantly low acidity on the palate.
This beer is slightly hazy and very orange, raising a thin, off-white head. The nose is funky and complex—a mélange of earth, citrus, mint and wool, not entirely unlike a Flemish brown ale. On the palate, the beer is smooth, round and has a slight sweetness, belated opposed by an ethereal, mouth-coating bitterness. There’s little acidity—the beer finishes cleanly with a strange astringent bitterness lingering. A fascinating beer from a fascinating brewery. I’m not even sure there are hops in this; the bitterness suggests something else. Do I like it? That’s hard to say, but it’s certainly very interesting. Oh, look, it’s gone!
New Belgium’s Flemish brewer Bouckaert has sought re-create an extinct style that was a low-strength springtime beer in the lambic family. I have tasted something similar made as a component of a blend in a Belgian lambic brewery. New Belgium’s interpretation captures to perfection the slightly iridescent onion-skin color and the earthy hop-sack aroma of the semi-wild yeast Brettanomyces. I found the beer more syrupy in texture than I expected, with a bitter-orange character and some medicinal notes.
Fred Eckhardt lives, writes about and drinks beer in Portland, OR. He is the author of The Essentials of Beer Style and Saké.
Internationally recognized brewer and expert on traditional beer, Garrett Oliver is the brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery and the author of The Brewmaster's Table.
Author of Ultimate Beer, the Simon & Schuster Guide to Beer and numerous other works on drinks, Michael Jackson has created legions of converts to fine beer.
