Made by Evil Twin Brewing, it's billed as 7.00% ABV sour IPA made with brown sugar, pear and cinnamon. These are flavors not found too often in conjunction with one another, and in a sour IPA (not a common style, either) it's somewhat a rare bird. I actually did not pay full price...I broke up the four-pack into single pint cans sold for $8.99. Much more reasonable.
Cracks open and poured myself a nice 6oz pour into my Craft Brewers Conference tasting stemware.
Nose is minorly sour, nothing aggressive or forward. A little bit of fruit sour nose, and there's very little head which settles almost immediately.
Actually, this kinda works. It's not particularly sour - it's there, just not hit-you-over-the-head sour - and I'm definitely getting a nice, full flavor of crisp, ripe pears. That's the bulk of the flavors for sure. The cinnamon is there, too, albeit pretty soft, and contributes to a definite sweetness due to the brown sugar that the sourness balances nicely. Finish is moderately long, with fresh sour notes and lots of pear hanging on the tongue after swallowing.
Most interesting to me is the synthesis of flavors here - the sour / sweet balance is good, as are the mellow and tame flavors of pear and cinnamon. The beer has a decent body, thanks to being an IPA, and the subtle ingredients not fund in sours make it quite interesting. Contrast this to some of the lighter kettle sours out there, which are "pucker sours" and delivery hard and fast sourness and salt. Here, it's much more rounded and silkier with no gose culture or barnyard aromas found in Belgian sours. In fact, this beer's body reminds me in some way of a Flanders red ale.
So is it worth the money? The merchant in me says no, no four-pack is worth $34.99, as you can get two decent four-packs of craft beer for that price. But is it worth 8.99 for one? Yes, definitely. I'd also love to try this on draft! A tasty beer that's good for people looking to start out with sours, perhaps.
No comments:
Post a Comment