La Goudale (7.2%) - Brasserie de Gayant, Nord-Pas-De-Calais Region, France

I nabbed this beer (along with a trolley-load of others) from a French supermarket on the way to Belgium a few months ago, and after trying a few from this part of the world it's become clear that there's one prevalent style to have emerged from France and that's the farmhouse ale, or "keeping beer". Farmhouse-style being free-style in nature, though, means it's not necessarily predictable as we're about to find out.

La Goudale describes itself on the label as a traditional blonde beer of "high fermentation". What it means by that is that it's brewed in the style of an ale rather than a continental lager (i.e. with top-fermenting yeasts), which brings me to the name of the beer. "Goudale", as it explains on the label, was how the people of 14th century France would describe "good beer". In other words, "goudale" is a corruption of "good ale". And as if looking across the channel towards Blighty for a term to describe decent beer wasn't a big enough compliment, they went one step further to take the English term and make a new word out of it that even we don't have by referring to people who sold the stuff as "goudaliers".

It's a simple yellow-coloured label with the name of the beer printed on it in a kind of calligraphy style font and two small motifs of some hops and barley.

The beer itself is a nice clear, golden-copper colour (not represented in the photographs, I must admit) topped with a smooth, white head with good retention and some superb lacing down the glass once you get round to sipping it down. Bubbling lively from the bottom (of the glass, that is), it almost looks like a slightly darker lager. Since both other French farmhouse ales I've tried have been cloudy with sediment suspended in the glass, I was surprised to see this one pour clear. In this case, they must have decided to filter it.

On the nose it’s very, very gentle. There was something sweet lurking in there with the faintest hint of something herbal, but nothing concrete I could put my finger on. 

In the flavour, though, I wasn't disappointed. The first thing that came to mind once I'd had a sip was that it tasted different from the other ales I'd had from the same style (which isn't that unusual, given that it's a bit of an "anything goes" style, although you normally get similarities across the board).

My second impression came after a few seconds when, out of nowhere, the flavour developed into something else. Starting off fairly nondescript like the aroma, a bit of a malty sweetness going on with a slight herbal influence, you're suddenly faced with a wave of bready malts and honey and some stone fruits, along with some spicy hops and some Belgian-tasting clove flavours too. This then washes down when you swallow, allowing the 7.2% abv to warm your throat on the way down.

This lively wash of flavours makes it hard to pin down exactly what’s going on with the flavour, but what I can be sure of is a total absence of the mustiness I've experienced in other French keeping beers. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.

After tasting the beer, with a helping hand from the effects of retro-nasal olfaction, you actually get more from the aroma when you go back to it. This time you can pick out more stone fruits, even some apple in there, and the bready aromas are complemented by some more hoppy, spicy and floral ones.

It’s medium-bodied with moderate carbonation, leaving a smooth mouthfeel overall, not leaving the musty dryness that, again, would normally come with a French keeping beer.

In fact, La Goudale seems so clean on every level that I was left to wonder just how "traditional" it was, as it claims to be on the label.

Saying that, it has a few surprises in store with a flavour that waits until it's washing around comfortably in your mouth before showing what it's capable of. And, even at a respectable 7.2%, it remains very drinkable.

Appearance 4/5

Aroma 3/5

Flavour 3/5

Mouthfeel 3.5/5

Beer Belly's rating: 7/10

Brewery details

Website: www.brasseurs-gayant.com  
Twitter: @brasseursgayant