Monday, October 20, 2008

Ommegang Ommegeddon With A Year Of Age On It

This bottle was from the first batch purchased in 2007. From Ommegang's website:

Ommegeddon is 8% ABV Belgian-style ale with a wild twist- a dose of Brettanomyces yeast and a blast of dry hopping. It’s a strong blonde ale with a sharp citrus flavor that, like the other Ommegang ales, has a dry finish. Its dryness and funkiness begat the name of Ommegeddon for the time when the forces of light and dark battle for world dominion. It’s time for you to pick your side.
Since this bottle is over a year old, aging may increase the Brettanomyces character but surely the dry hopping character will be gone. That makes for an interesting tug-of-war. It seems odd to add an ingredient (Brettanomyces) at bottling that takes quite a bit of time to develop and assert its character, while at the same time giving the beer a characteristic (dry hopping) that will fade relatively fast with cellaring.

Anyway, time to drink after a year I suppose. The aroma I get out of it at first is similar to a brut champagne. As far as funk expected from the Brett, not so much. There's a bit of a dirt character in there, probably accentuated by the dryness. Faint citric lemon-like in aroma too. In the taste the dryness is apparent right off the bat while flavors of faint lemon juice starts you off and finishes with a yeasty earthiness. Seems like there is a lingering tannic bitterness, similar to a beer that had spent some time on wood, though I don't think this one ever touched wood. Really dry overall.

Well, it started out as kind of a disappointment to me, I thought it'd be either more tart or more funky. It wasn't really either, in terms of my expectations. The beer did grow on me and I enjoyed the whole bottle, but would not enjoy it again at the price I obtained it at ($13 I think).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have been generally underwhelmed by the Ommegang lineup. Recent bottle of Chocolate Indulgence was pretty lackluster. Not bad to drink, but not exciting or thought provoking either. Three Philosophers...Blah. Abbey Ale...Good. Hennepin...Solid.

Not meant to be a Ommegang rant, just an observation

Steve said...

Agree with that. I heard Chocolate Indulgence was fairly lame so I passed on the opportunity to overspend on that beer... Three Philosophers was mediocre, loved Hennepin. Need to try that Abbey Ale soon.

I just had Ommegang Rouge, a flanders red that's been on tap at a few places here in So Cal and it was phenominal.