The Sour Before Christmas

A nice sour with light acidity, somewhat spicy with a Christmasy feeling. Very drinkable and smooth. Lovely!

Hazy blond colour, white foam. Tart, lactic sourness, citrussy, lemony, a bit peppery. Easy drinkable.

Pale blond colour with thin head. Grainy taste but with a prominent citric sharpness. Genuinely sour.

Flaska från Etre Gourmete. Disig gyllengul vätska med lågt skum. Frisk doft med stjärnfrukt, citrus, vinbär och omogna gula plommon. Frisk och syrlig, smak som doften, citrusskal i eftersmak. Snäll beska. Trevlig och törstsläckande.

Bottle from Geers. Clear yellow, stable, frothy, white head. Aroma of sour mandarin, gooseberry, starfruit, kiwi, lime, young yellow apple. Taste has sour berries, kiwi & starfruit, turning towards a heavy citric character with lemon, some wheat & sourdough-like maltiness. Tart, fruity finish, citric acid again with sour tropical fruit accents, almost no hoppiness. Medium body, slick texture, average carbonation. Fresh & refreshing but sightly underwhelming for me.

Hoppy kettle sour from one of Brussels’ finest breweries, bottle from Etre Gourmet. Snow white, mousy, thick head lacing in shreds over a hazy yellow blonde beer with pale apricot tinge. Aroma of moldy lemons, maracuja, herb cheese, rosewater, margarine, green gooseberries, white unsugared yoghurt, sour plums, dough, chalk, lime, raw parsnip. Tart onset, but in a very bright and crisp way, citric almost with passionfruit- and starfruit-like flavours providing further ornamentation; medium carb, doughy but still lean and supple maltiness dried by ongoing sourness, in a crisp, tangy but altogether relatively mild and ‘superficial’ way as tends to be the case in kettle souring. Lots of tropical fruitiness (most notably passionfruit, some mango and pineapple) in the finishing stage, with beautifully refreshing citric character from both the hops and the sourness; very quenching, but very radiant and ‘full’ finish, in all. Well-balanced, quite complex and rich for a kettle sour and very bright and refreshing – a beautiful ‘sour IPA’ indeed, or whatever you want to call it…

Bouteille 33cl de Malt Attacks, BB 15/05/2020.
Dorée claire, col fin blanc.
Arôme est citrique, fruité axé sur le tropical et agrumes, pamplemousse, fin herbacé et fleuri. Effluve un peu poudre houblon - herbacé-chanvre assez subtile en retrait.

Palais marque un côté sour assez marqué rappelant presque une Berliner.
Petite touche épicée en rétro rehaussée par un léger apport citrique. Agrumes et léger tropical avec une petite note terreuse en retrait.

Nice enough fruity Berliner but this style often leaves me cold. Maybe I shouldn’t be drinking it inside on a late winter night. Very easy going, but not sure I needed it. Some interesting delicate lemon sherbet type flavours but the whole thing is dominated by Berliner sourness obviously without funk.