Eric's Ale - New Belgium, Fort Collins

The way I heard the story behind this beer is that Eric was a lowly junior brewer at New Belgium and this was his Longshot moment (a la Sam Adams). This was relayed to me by someone who claims to have heard it first hand while on tour in Fort Collins, so make of that what you will. What I do know for a fact is that this beer is an ale aged on wood for "up to three years" and fermented with peach juice. All of that sounds great... but not all of that comes through in the end.

This beer looks like a filtered Tripel when it is poured into your glass. It has that nice golden orange color with a bright white head. The aroma is vaguely reminiscent of a Tripel as well, it is sweet but a little off... hinting at its sourness. The aroma is really the only time I ever picked up on the wood aging they mention on the bottle. It's really quite subtle when you take a sip, hiding behind the big tart pucker you get up front. You'll notice the peach juice right away but I kept thinking I was drinking a sour apple Hornsby or Woodchuck...

That may sound harsh, but this beer wasn't bad per se, it just wasn't what I was looking for. In some ways, it's not you it's me... It's not Eric's fault I wasn't floored by his beer. It says right on the label that this is a "sour beer for people who don't like sour beer" ...well I like sour beers, so maybe this isn't the beer for me. That being said, Eric's Ale wasn't bad it just wasn't anything great... so it was pretty much par for the course as far as New Belgium goes.