North Coast Twentieth Anniversary Ale
67% ale brewed with agave nectar and aged in oak barrels, 33% ale brewed with agave nectar. (Released in 500ml cork/cage bottles at brewpub, on May 10, 2009, later rebranded as Grand Cru)
3.6
388 reviews
Fort Bragg, United States
Community reviews
Flaska bishops Örebro. Grumlig orange kulör. Doft av russin, gröna vindruvor och fat. Smak av smörkola, druva och mandelmassa.
Bottle from Cask N’ Flask, San Jose. Seem to remember splitting it with Hatzer. Coppery orange fogged with bits under a brief white head. Mad squashy dried fruit, Nice biscuits dipped in bourbon nose. Elegant coconut, vanilla pod custard flavour smeared with mellow fig. Chewy sweet dessert wine blended with bourbon, less heat. Vanilla and coconut macaroon dominating. Zero alcohol. Light dusting of cocoa powder. Fine brew.
From 22oz bottle to snifter. Pour is a hazy yellow, thin white head. Nose is yeast, light fruit, raisin, slight malt. Taste is medium bodied, sweet. Finishes silky and smooth. Great Grand Cru.
(Bottle) Murky, red mud body with a minimal white head, almost flat. Strong alcohol in aroma, wood, orange, some berries, vanilla, mild spices. Light bodied, flat. Flavor is sweet, alcohol, bourbon, vanilla, cinnamon, allspice.
Pours copper with a quickly receding, bubbling head. Wafts of vanilla, raisin, plum, caramel, Belgian yeast and alcohol. Taste has lots of the classical Belgian characteristics: slightly spiced, sweet, crisp and effervescent. The golden raisin/plum/prune is present, with a pleasant buttery oak finish. Slightly astringent, but at 12.5% that's not really a surprise. The reviews knocking the style as inconsistent and different aren't wrong; to me it just feels like the blend works more often than it doesn't.
Bottle from Saveur-Biere.com - Color: hazy golden beer with small carbonation, yeast particles, small white foam effervescent as champagne when served. Smell: champagne nose at the beginning. Sweet caramel and malt domination, alcohol notes. Nice bouquet nose, lot of ester. Taste: full body with caramel domination malt. Very intensive malt presence, small effervescent on mouth. Caramel attenuation, alcohol and astringent. Very sweet. Aftertaste: caramel malt, sweet caramel and astringent alcohol. Good complexity.
Bomber. Pours a cloudy orange with a dissipating head and aroma of fruits and caramel. Taste is of fruits, hops, caramel, and oak notes into the fruity finish.
Pours a light copper rusted color with a small beige head. Nose is sweet and fruity . Taste is oaky with tart fruit. Finishes on the same tasting notes, with a oaky tannin finish . Quaff Score 7 / 10
Pours a nice dark hazy brownish color. Aromas of malts, and some other hints, maybe fruit, maybe caramel, and hops. Flavor is a bitter, malty, and hoppy with a nice dry finish.
Not bad, but surprisingly not especially good. Very average in appearance, cloudy gold, minimal head. Aroma of golden raisin and prune. Taste had more Belgian yeast but the appearance didn’t match the taste somehow, just couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
Bottle, april 30th 2015. Unclear golden body, low white head. Aroma is winey with honey, mild citrus and yeast. Taste of banana, vanilla, oak and plum, with a burning whisky finish. Lasting oak and banana aftertaste. Mild alcohol notes through all.
sample from bottle, hazy dark golden colour with a slight white head on top. nose of sweet caramel malts, honey, belgian yeast, prunes, coriander spice, wood, sweet buttery aftertaste. not my kind of beer. weird buttery mouthfeel
I dunno what happened here... It tasted too syrupy and concentrated for me. Tasted like it might need some watering down. I dunno
aged a few years for special occasion. Agave and barrelling give this a coconut character, also very woody. Smooth. Agave and wood aroma.
From a bottle. Pours a hazy golden color. Aroma and taste are fruits, sugar, light oak, and toffee.
Smooth whiskey aged custardy flavour despite the horror look its good been aged and a celebratory drink ya
Rated on 8-02-2015 (Corked and caged bottle) This beer’s appearance is a small fizzy white head that fully diminished, hazy amber body, fizzy, fast rising, lively carbonation noted, and no lacing. The aroma is woody, malt, sweet, fruity, and alcohol. The flavor is sweet, yeasty, fruity, alcohol, and it has a semi-dry finish. The mouthfeel is moderate-lively carbonation and this beer is medium-full bodied. Overall, this is a sipping beer and it is quite fizzy tasting.
Bottle as North Coast Grand Cru, gusher on opening. Pours quite hazy peach, surprisingly small head, beige with little residual beyond a ring and some lacing. Aroma is sweet, honey, some belgian spice. Flavor is quite sweet, light bitter, hot, honey, agave I guess with some oak tannins and Belgian style spices, coriander, cloves. Medium body, soft carbonation, quite hot throughout with a sweet lingering finish along with some herbal notes.
This corked and caged bottled brew from a bottle shop poured a head of frothy fine to large sized white colored bubbles that were quickly diminishing and left behind a softly carbonated transparent orange brown colored body and no lacing. The weak aroma was candy. The fizzy mouth feel was tingly at the start and strongly tingly at the finish with a lingering caramel hop aftertaste. The nice fizzy flavor contained notes of semi-sweet mild citrus oak vinous candy caramel hops and malt.
bottle @ Party Town / Florence KY --- Hazy dark dirty golden amber color, just a drizzle of ivory for a rim head, no lace. Still and flat looking. Aroma of malt, citrus, and alcohol. Taste is obvious alcohol leading a trailer of toffee malt and agave and enough dry citrus to maintain an edge. Strong, but not appropriate for summer. Usable, not quite great.
The pour is a light golden color with some haze. The aroma is light and citrus with some of the booziness coming through. The agave comes through together with nice fruity notes, vanilla and sugar. Quite easy for the abv.
There are certain combinations you’d assume would automatically equate to not just a winning formula, but a triumphant formula. Complex Belgian style + bourbon barrel aging would be an example of what I mean, especially in the form of North Coast Grand Cru. And while this is a good, somewhat unique strong Belgian beer, it’s not especially great despite the barrel aging. Not that it’s bad – it’s good – but this beer should be fantastic.
I poured a 500ml bottle into a tulip glass. There was no bottling or vintage date. Thanks for the folks at North Coast Brewing for this bottle!
Appearance: Extremely cloudy light orange/copper hue with no visible carbonation. Pours to a small, white, soapy head which fizzles away quickly and completely.
Smell: Significant bourbon character as soon as the cork is popped, though the beer itself is more in line with a traditional Belgian tripel or any kind of strong golden ale. Plenty of banana and clove esters with the agave nectar present as well.
Taste: What separates this beer from others of the general style is that it’s a Belgian strong pale ale brewed with agave nectar. That gives the beer a significant juicy and fruity flavor akin to tropical fruit juice concentrate. In fact, it’s one of the sweetest Belgian-style brews I can recall having. Big banana and tropical fruit flavors up front with underlying notes of butterscotch (not diacetyl) and vanilla through the middle and significant bourbon and wood flavors on the finish. The alcohol is very prominent from start to finish and actually distracts a bit from the base palette. Still, the banana and clove flavors from the yeast are a nice counter balance.
Drinkability: Weighing in at 12.9% ABV, North Coast Grand Cru is definitely a hefty brew. For better or worse, it does not drink like that, though. The carbonation dies down quickly, leaving a body that is tepid, calm, and chewy. Oddly enough, there is no cloying sensation and it leave a rather disappointingly clean aftertaste. The alcohol also imparts significant heat and lingers in the throat after each swig – not unlike that from capsaicin (chile peppers). A sipper to be sure.
Score: 7/10
Bottle 500ml. Dirty murky amber/copper with a minimal head. Typical sour aromas, though the tartness is well controlled. Medium to robust bodied with moderate to fizzy carbonation. Very dry with low astringent, but an impressive smoked and alcohol character. Not like a Belgian sour at all, way heavier and more complex.
As "Grand Cru," vague idea of age (2011-2012ish?). Listed at 12.9% ABV and aged in oak bourbon barrels. Gusher, like a Champagne bottle, which is a little disturbing. Once it settles, the pour is a hazy golden orange with a fair amount of fine floating sediment and a fizzy eggshell head that settles to a scant ring and does not lace, though some alcohol film not quite turning to legs is present on a swirl. Nose involves rich sweet malt, vegetal agave notes, some tropical pineapple, cane sugar, woodiness, vanilla, stone fruit (peach) and coconut. Very sweet, lightly tart, somewhat bitter. Full bodied, slippery, viscous, soft yet prickly, with a warm twangy herbal drying finish. Full disclosure: this beer is not for me on the grounds of the agave alone. I unfortunately ruined tequila for myself at a young age by drinking quantities of swill and suffering the obvious negative side-effects (puking 90% of the time I drank it and blacking out in people’s bathrooms and a kitchen sink once), so that agave flavor takes me back to a bad place. That said, the combination of horrifying veggie-agave flavor with the overbearing sweetness and questionable age of this beer pushed this to borderline disgusting and undrinkable for me. My rating will no doubt be an outlier, but I will never try this again and would never recommend it to anyone, even at fire-sale prices.
Bottle; thanks to the superb generosity of my friend madmitch76, shared with staff at Alehouse, Chelmsford, 31st March 2015.
Shit loads of cedar on aroma, reminiscent of Thomas O’Hardy. Sugar and caramel. Very rich. Taste is sugar, marzepan, cedar, caramel and alcohol. Fantastic. Exactly what I want from a good old bottle. Completely blown away by how clean and how interesting this beer is. Great work.
Smell is odd and hard to describe. Kind of malty? Taste is caramel, malt, and general ale. Hides the ABV pretty well.
Flaska från SB. 2013 vintage. Smak och doft av torkad frukt, äpple, persika, röda bär med toner av trä, bourbonfat och vanij. Agavesötma, fruktig, fin syrlighet, komplexa smaker som sammanflätas på ett angenämt sätt. Lättsam att dricka trots sina 12%. Bästa ölet denna kväll.
Flaska från SB. 2013 vintage. Söt, fruktig och med en lite fin syrlighet som ger ölen en lätthet som är ovanlig för en 12%s fatlagrad pjäs. Lätt borbountouch, stora komplexa maltig smaker med vanilj, fat, torkad frukt, lite kokos och en fin fruktighet med lite persika och röda bär. Fantastiskt gott.
Cork and cage into snifter. Smells a little of honey, hints of Bourbon, and some funk. Tastes a little bit of peach, just a perfect amount of Bourbon, sweetness, with a taste of carrot left on the tongue. Incredible and unique beer.
Draft at Churchkey. Hazy golden yellow color, medium white head. Aroma of vanilla, summer fruit, light dust. Taste is lightly funky summer fruit. Nice.