Cuvee d'Bandwagon
Springdale Beer Co. in Framingham, Massachusetts, United States 🇺🇸
Sour / Wild Beer Regular|
Score
6.99
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GenDV138 (9249) reviewed Cuvee d'Bandwagon from Springdale Beer Co. 9 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
4 oz pour on draft at Jack’s Abby. Consumed on 4/21/2016. March/April 2016 batch dry hopped with Saaz and Chinook. Clear golden yellow with off-white head. Aromas of musty oak, white wine, grapes. Tastes of wine, musty oak, stone fruit, grapes. Medium body with a dry finish. Pretty nice.
Clarkvv (16523) reviewed Cuvee d'Bandwagon from Springdale Beer Co. 10 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
Draught at Row 34, 11/18/15.
They are so god damned not-forthcoming about detailed information on their sour barrel project beers. Occasionally they will feature one on their blog/website/twitter, but they’ve put out what, 11 or 12 of them, or something like that? The vast majority you just get "Sour lager with cranberries" or what we have here "golden lager soured in wine barrels with X dry hops." I don’t know, I just feel like these beers are so time-consuming that you’d definitely want to say a lot about them when releasing them. Anyways, pretty irrelevant to the actual beer, end rant.
Golden beer with a small white, rapidly fleeting head and good clarity (light haziness).
Not knowing the accuracy of the commercial deScription and finding nothing more about this beer online than that, I was unsure if there was fruit in it. Because it certainly smells a whole lot like blueberry skin and/or cranberry pulp. Very floral, poignantly spicy and with a very dry fruitiness. Turns out, no fruit and this is just the manifestation of the wood mixing with the grape character. It’s interesting and also makes room for very light brett fruitiness (light citrus skin, bit of funk). Cracker-like character is all that can be gleaned from the malts, in the nose.
A little less wood and grape-driven in the flavor, with a bit more rounded fruitiness, some moderate honey-like sweetness and a pretty tight carbonation that helps add a perceived creaminess, to some extent. Acidity is moderate to moderately-high but not crude or obnoxious. For as much grape and wood character as the beer has, there’s little/no astringency, which is quite impressive. Hops add tropical fruits, light citrus and really do a good job of mimicking/supplementing the yeast and wine-derived fruitiness.