Reports from the trenches of the San Diego beer scene

Headless and Overpriced: Lost Abbey’s Angel’s Share

Posted April 27th, 2009 by Nate

I am so disappointed.

It’s not that I expect every beer to be perfect.  It’s not even that I expect every expensive beer to be perfect.  What I do expect is that if you brew, taste, and distribute a beer with a $30 price tag, it should be pretty damn good.  Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case with Angel’s Share.

My wife was kind enough to pick me up a bottle of this for Easter.  She went way out of her way to have a friend buy it for her and deliver it on the down-low so I’d be surprised.  It was a touching gesture, to be sure.  I decided I’d throw it in my cellar closet to let it age for a year before I tried it.

Imagine my surprise when I’m at BevMo the following week picking up supplies for a little get-together with friends and lo-and-behold, they are chock full of 2008 Angel’s Share.  I was delighted!  I could have a bottle to share with friends and one to age.

That night we crack the bottle after chilling it just a tad.  The nose on this beer was a little too reminiscent of Judgment Day, sweet and fruity in a raisin sort of way, but we still had high hopes. Initially the beer seemed flat so I really roughed up the pour and this thing just would not foam up.  Determined to power onward I let it breathe and warm up a bit before tasting it.

The taste is sour and the texture completely flat.  There is a mild hopiness to it, but not enough to salvage the rest.  This is just not a good beer.  We let it warm up a bit, thinking the alcohol would warm and bring out some different flavor: no dice.

Since drinking this beer and before writing this I looked around and found a lot of favorable reviews.  many of them mentioned the great head on this beer, which makes me think that Angel’s Share isn’t inherently bad, but there was just a bad batch.  This leads me back to my original point.  I’m still a huge fan of Lost Abbey.  They have some great beers (I’m looking at you, Devotion).  I am just sorely dissapointed that such a fine brewery would allow such a poor product to go to market.