Saranac Belgian Ale
This deliciously fruity ale is brewed with a generous amount of Belgian aromatic malt, hand selected hops and a traditional Belgian ale yeast. Brewed in the "Trappist" style, our Saranac Belgian Ale's fruity, malty character will leave you craving another bottle. Enjoy!
2.8
254 reviews
Utica, United States
Community reviews
Cloudy amber with a small head...Mildly fruity aroma...Thin body, medium carbonation...Light caramel and bread up front with a mild fruity finish...Fairly basic and middle of the road belgian ale...
12oz - Aroma of wet malts, candi sugar and a touch of yeast. Bland flavor that matches aroma. Palate is sticky and tart. Not so good, but drinkable.
You got to love the liberal interpretation of some of these beer labels. I am sure that this is a "Trappist" example in the same way that SA Cranberry Lambic is a true lambic. About the only thing fruity in this is that there is some yeast character in this beer, other than that not much.
Pours slightly hazy orange with a frothy white head. Aroma of Belgian yeast, berry and roast malt. Taste is thick caramel malt with some bitter hop. Medium body, sharp carbonation.
341ml bottle. Pours a hazy amber, with a thin off white head that sticks around. Caramel, yeast, faint spice, dried fruits and honey on the nose. Smells very much like a Belgian. Tastes a little different though. Metallic bitterness, with sweet malt, raisin, and grass. Finished slightly sweet. Medium bodied. Tastes like some kind of Belgian / domestic hybrid. Not bad. Not great.
12oz bottle. Pours a clear, orange-golden colored body with a thin, off-white head that dissipates quickly and leaves a moderate lacing. Aroma is moderately sweet with some fruity esters, Belgian yeast, and a light spice. The fruits have some apricot, orange, and tangerine sweetness. Not complex, but nice. Flavor is similar. Lighter, moderately sweet malts with some candy, Belgian yeast, more fruity esters, and a light amount of balancing spices and a soft bitterness. Finishes fruity with a light malt sweetness and dry thanks to a light grass and clove-like spice. Overall, a simple and straightforward, but decent enough beer. Fruity with a Belgian yeastiness and fairly sweet. Not bad.
Pours a light brown his sizeable head. Nose has watermellon, rainshower grass, cilantro. Not as much fruit in the taste as I expected. Definitely the use of Belgian malt but also a slight off-note lingering around. Somewhat sour finish. This one is really missing character, save for an decent nose....
The taste comes off flat at first, but somehow emerges as belgian somewhere in the aftertastge. The yeast just doesnt settle well from withing leaving a dark, damp, oily bitterness to deal with. there is a hint of fruit but it gets lost in the shuffle.
Dec. 29, 2009; 12 oz. bottle (fr. Winter sampler 12-pack). Absolutely dreading the Maple Porter, so this is next-to-last. Amber pour; fruity aroma; quite bitter & astringent with fruity esters evident. However, if this is a Belgian, at least some suspension of disbelief is required. Tastes like the Saranac Pale Ale recipe has been tweaked yet again (not in a good way this time) to keep the label-makers busy. The maddening flaw of this underachieving brewery is its attention deficit disorder . . . squandering the potential to refine its very few good-to-excellent brews in favor of spewing out scores of mediocre-to-poor ones in order to sell holiday boxes.
Brownish amber pour with a light head. Coriander and orange peel with a bit of Belgian yeast. Flavor is a little thin and bland but drinkable and not unpleasant.
pours hazy gold with a hint of ruby brown fluffy white head. nose is fruity but metallic. flavor is light fruit, but the slight iron taste/smell is still there...kinda throwing me off. light esters, grapefruit, carrot, but not all that great, especially not for a belgian. after is kinda off, astringent, grainy...maybe I have a bad bottle. my wife’s she had last night was better, much more in line with the style, but it was room temp by the time i got around to tasting it.
Smell is vaguely hoppy with a certain fruity sweetness to it. Tastes about the same as the smell - some mild hop bitterness, a little sweet. Overall, it tastes pretty bland, but smooth and unoffensive.
Pours a hazy golden with a white head. Aroma is light clove, bready yeast, and a little citrus. Flavor is sweet malt, clove, light bubblegum, and yeast.
Pours amber with a medium off-white head. Has nice aroma of raisin, fruit, yeast, spice. Flavor is not nearly as yeasty, and has some grassy aftertaste. I can taste toasted malts, slight caramel, and spice. Soft finish, slightly sweet.
Pours a nice amber with a light frothy head. Aromas of coriander, spice, clove, slight caramel, and a touch of hay. Flavor is of clove, light grass, slight caramel, light bubblegum, and a touch of toffee. Slightly sour. Around the average Belgian ale.
There is just not much going on here. Red pour, sweet fruit smell and not much in the way of taste.....blah
POurs a dull red. Nose is belgian yeast, some mild fruit. Flavor is all the things I hate about belgians mixed into one beer. Weak watery, spicy yeast, doughy and fruity.
12 oz bottle. Light brown pour with a medium fizzy tan head. Aroma of malt and Belgian yeast. Taste of malt, coriander and faint caramel. Not as smooth as the style tends to be, but a decent effort.
Pours cloudy dark orange color with off white head. Fruity aroma with lemon and corriander. Similar flavors with a strange aftertaste. Medium body with average carbonation.
Bright reddish orange color. Lots of tiny bubbles of carbonation. Healthy finger of foamy head. Lots of light passes through a slight haze. Thick coating of lace.
Nice fruity spice aroma. Belgiany orange smell, with a roasted malt undercurrent; a smooth brown ale base. Sweet and spicy.
Spicy and fruity taste. Has an orange peel spicyness. There is a darker toasted sweetness, like a sweet brown ale. Minor hop bitterness. Dark berry sweetness. Nice mix of sweeter flavors of varying types. Minor smoky, steamed taste.
Feels fizzy on the tongue, but creamy at the swallow. Has a thin, smooth coating. A very nice brew. Spicy, sweet, roasted; overall nicely balanced. Repeats A-OK.
Bottle. Amber color, decent head.
Very nice aroma, quite like a typical Belgian ale, of malt and yeast. Flavor is decent, but far too thin and weak. Strongly hopped, which was good, but not enough malt and not enough alcohol to pull it through. A decent starter, but only about 1/2 the way there. Hop finish was good, but really almost of out of place.
Typical Belgian except a bit weak in flavor and not particularly well balanced either... another disappointment from these guys.
Pours copper with gold edges and weak white head. The aroma has notes of raisins, dried cranberries, sugary malts and a yeasty spice sensation. The taste feels watery and begins with sugar sweet malts to go along with raisins, prunes and dates. It moves forward toward being peppery midway but the flavor smooths out before that happens. It ends with estery notes like prunes, dried cranberries and a hint of peppery spice.
Bottle, if you cant get the American styles right you have no business here. I have a feeling i’m going to get some hate mail. Bottle pours a copper body with a white head. Some light spicy yeast notes and a lemongrass, caramel body, wheat and anise. haha trappist style, good one.
Pours a hazy amber with a fluffy head. Aroma has plenty going for it, some cherry some apple and some cinnamon. Flavor is less exciting with some cherry notes and some odd salty and metallic notes. This beer was enjoyable at first but about halfway through the bottle I was pretty sick of it.
Date: May 09, 2009
Mode: Bottle
Source: Trade
Appearance: clear copper, wispy off white head
Aroma: light sweet and spicy aroma, sweet fruity esters, spicy phenolics
Flavor: rich malty flavor, lots of fruityness, balancing spicyness, light bitterness follows the spicyness
Aroma: 6/10; Appearance: 6/10; Flavor: 6/10; Palate: 6/10; Overall: 11/20
Rating: 2.9/5.0
Drinkability: 7/10
Score: *4
Not a very good Belgian Ale. Had a weird taste to it, and it was a bit too watery. It was just way too weak. LC
Craft brewers in America have taken a great shine to the grandiose ales that have brewed overseas for centuries, especially Belgian ales. There are many who try and among those many who try, there are both success stories and the miserable woes of failure. I am hoping that my Belgian-style Ale from Saranac will be of the successful variety.
She stared at me with amber-orange eyes sprinkled with copper flecks while a creamsicle head fades to veritable nothingness. I am able to coax some lace with a few vigorous swirls, but overall nothing to write home about. Wafting upward are faint traces of sourdough, banana, and yeast funk while coriander, nutmeg, and allspice get busy in the background. Sweet tangerines and tangelos will hopefully carry over into her body. My first quaff is thick and mildly frothy, reminiscent of the effervescence found in traditional Belgians. My second quaff is equally smooth, but I have to really concentrate to pick out the bounties of my plunder. A mild spice lingers in my breath while bananas, honey, and ginger slowly come out of hiding. Lemon and sweet grass on top of my tongue reminds me that hops are present. As she has time to adapt to the room temperature, bless her, more spice and sourdough along with a crisp summer crunch of apples and pears help liven what has so far been a rather lack-luster experience. She doesn’t have the higher ABV of most Belgian ales so no spreading warmth to speak of and not much of a lingering finish either, just a dry bitterness that clings unpleasantly to the top of my tongue. While not a drain-pour, my Saranac was definitely not what I would expect of Belgian-style ale.
I hate to say it, but after my Saranac, I had to crack open a real Belgian I had resting in my fridge. I will say that Saranac had the right idea; the majority of flavors were there, but they were so weak and wimpy that they may as well not have been. Back to the brewing board, I would say.
Bottle. Pours an amber with little head. Aromas are weak... maybe a little spice, but I’m having a hard time picking up much more. Flavor is kind of an effervescent bit of cloves with little other complexity apart from the astringent alcohol.
Courtesy MrBunn. Aroma of malt and apples and spice. Pour is reddish brown. Flavor is that of band aids, bread, and some caramel apple...but damn little. Somewhat smooth.Finish is a bit dry.