7/10
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Appearance 8
Aroma 7
Flavor 7
Texture 6
Overall 7
750mL bottle drunk on 1/25 and 1/26/14
Black raspberry purple with lighter strawberry red tints. Fluffy white head is flecked with pink and recedes slowly to cover. Plentiful sediment in the bottom and tons of fine carbonation rising.
Blueberry skins in the nose remind me of Mystic’s Vinland Two, yet there is some lactic tartness here that helps break up the blueberry. Light powdered sugar and vegetal notes seem to go hand in hand with the fruitiness, but it’s faint and mostly passing. Medium to high strength of aroma, no alcohol noted, very little malt.
Spicy, tart, rich blueberry flavor is very authentic and well-done, it just seems to lack a follow up with much maltiness. A very fleeting sourness is interesting, but ultimately leads back to a lightly sweet blueberry flavor mixed with some light malt sweetness (white sugar-like). Tight, creamy almost, carbonation helps bolster the light body and certainly asserts this as a refreshing summer quaffer. Seems like this wasn’t intended as anything more than a light, refreshing blueberry golden ale, but the oak and lactic character tease your expectations. Would have really liked more malt body, barrel character and sourness.
Tried
from Bottle
on 26 Jan 2014
at 15:14