2008 Great American Beer Fest Award Winner!

Occasionally considered the "Dark Horse" in our portfolio, Rare Vos has brought home an award the we are simultaneously grateful for, and feel that it is long overdue. Perenially the "Brewer's Choice" here at Ommegang, the 2008 GABF in Denver, CO saw Rare Vos lauded with a Bronze medal in the French- and Belgian-Style Ale category out of 34 entries. GABF medals are widely considered among the most prestigious in American judgings, and Brewmaster Phil Leinhart and the entire Ommegang brew-staff are filled with pride to be in posession of this award. Way to go, gentlemen!

Named after a Brussels bar made famous as the starting point for bicycle and pigeon races, our Rare Vos Amber Ale is also a great place to begin your virtual taste test. As you pour, you'll notice the beautiful coppery-amber color and the rich creamy head. Lift the glass to your mouth and enjoy the aroma of spicy orange blossoms. Taste, and the pleasant mellow flavor of caramel malt glides easily into a dry, hop finish. Once you've finished, start again (after all, this isn't a race).

Intended for the café as well as the dinner table, Rare Vos is an amber ale of medium color and strength. It sports aromas and flavors of caramel, orange, hops, plus an elusive fruity-yeasty flavor which will have you tasting in circles.

bar foods, pasta, burgers, designer pizza, mussels and frites, as well as grilled fish, mixed grills, conch fritters, crab and crayfish, Jamaican jerk chicken, paellas, chorizos and merguez, tapas, and Cuban pork.

"I pick up pear-ish notes in the aroma and, to a more limited degree, in the body. Also in the nose I find peppery spice with some faint notes of fig, while the moderately refreshing body provides more spice(cinnamon and allspice) and dried fruit, including apple, fig and date.

Once I added the yeast from the bottle to my glass -- like all of Ommegang's beers, Rare Vos is bottle-fermented -- I noted that the spice was accentuated at the expense of the fruit, which could be good or bad depending on how you feel about such things. Certainly on the positive side was the fact that, through the yeast addition, the slightly cloying finish of Rare Vos became both drier and spicier, which I thought improved the ale's strong overall appeal.

Ommegang likes to characterize their beers as 'special occasion ales,' brews not for the everyday but
for mealtimes or situations where you desire something special. And where Ommegang Ale and Hennepin, the brewery's two stronger offerings, are concerned, I would agree. But I think that they are wrong about Rare Vos -- it would be a welcome beer in my home any day."

STEPHEN BEAUMONT writes for Realbeer.com (among other publications) and is author of Stephen Beaumont’s World of Beers.

“As fond as I am of Ommegang’s other beers, especially the saison Hennepin, I feel that Rare Vos may be its most beguiling brew. The beer is bottle conditioned, but it pours bright copper and shows a brilliant display of classic Belgian aromatics. Sweet oranges dance with aniseed, biscuits, caramel and hops in the tantalizing nose. The palate shows restrained bitterness and racy acidity in a medium-bodied fruity frame with very little residual sugar. The finish is quick, hard, and minerally, with a slight metallic tang. Rare Vos is great with mussels, grilled shrimp, oysters, fried clams, sausages and choucroute.”

GARRETT OLIVER is an internationally recognized brewer and expert on traditional beer styles. He is also brewmaster for the Brooklyn Brewery and author of The Brewmaster’s Table.