Wood Werks No. 1 - Belgian-Style Sour
Great Divide Brewing Co.

This beer had a born on date of 1/8/2018 which is before its retirement date. I got this as "new" old stock.

Pours a hazy peachy color with little head and very light lacing.

Smells and tastes of tart, oaky and funky peaches and plums with a lightly salty bitter and boozy warm finish.

Medium light body and carbonation. Brut mouthfeel.

This is a very interesting brew considering that the bottle that I just bought is 8 + years old ! The lable looks like it was printed yesterday.

Unique and piquant !

I enjoyed this one, which is kind of a hybrid experiment that they tried. The sweetness of the tripel base meshed nicely with the sour aftertaste, so you get a pretty well-balanced beer. And the barrel aging adds a bit more ABV to the brew too, so it clocks in at a solid 9.3%, though it doesn't feel that heavy. It would be cool to try the non-barrel-aged version of this to compare it and see what the original beer tasted like, so I could see the impact of the oak. I did get just a faint hint of the plums that are mentioned in the description, for what that's worth. All told, a successful experiment.

Poured from a 12oz bottle into a tulip. Bottled January 2018 -- guess I'm a little late to the game on this one!

Appearance: medium golden hue with a fair bit of haze and a thin layer of fizzy ivory foam. Not bad, but not super exciting.

Smell: brightly tart aroma with a nice woody character. It's not necessarily deeply complex, but it's perky and interesting.

Taste: an interesting funk pairs with plenty of tartness and wood. A very Brettanomyces-tasting beer but with more tartness then you might guess. The label says there are plums, which don't exactly pop in the flavor, but they could be adding to a subtle fruity under-tone that works well with the funk and sourness. I'm actually really liking this one.

Mouthfeel: medium body with a decent carbonation and creaminess. Nothing to write home about.

Overall: I like this beer, and it would seem that I found about the last place with any bottles of it. I would definitely drink this again.

 

So the good elements are the orange, belgian yeast, and the sour wood. Normally oak, but it tastes more savory, like birchwood. Taste has the yogurt feel too. But it feels held back by underlying yeast, cuts into the flavors too much. Body is pretty thin on the finish too

 

 

Wood Werks No.1 - Belgian Style Sour. 12oz bottle poured into a Duvel tulip. BOTTLED ON JAN 18 2018 printed on bottom right corner of label. Apparently cost about $9. Definitely the most expensive beer my malt liquor drinking dad ever bought. Grabbed it for me from the bottle shop on a whim.

The bottle recommends pairing it with food: Braised short ribs with roasted potato, mushroom, & arugula salad with balsamic, point reyes blue cheese, plum sorbet. After having this beer, I can understand why they'd have you pair it with such flavorful foods -- It can definitely keep up.

The label also recommends using their Barrel Aged Series Spiegelau glass which looks a lot like a standard tulip or snifter.

Appearance - Deeply hazy yellow-orange body. Small white irregular head with low retention and slight irregular lacing. 4

Smell - Sour apple pie and some floral notes. 4

Taste - Smokey, oaky, and moderately to strongly acidic character on a very sour mildly fruit body. Very unique smokey characteristics for a sour. First impression was not too amazed, but as the beer warms and evolves on the palate, it gets noticeably better. A surprising lack of astringency on the back end, which I would typically expect from beer this high ABV, with characters this potent. 4.25

Mouthfeel - Bold, almost acrid. Isn't gentle on the throat either. The burp comes up very spicy and smokey. Not too mouth puckering though. 4

Overall - This beer actually blurs the line between a sour and a barelywine in terms of alcohol content and flavor profile. Extremely interesting beer. Definitely not a casual beer. This one is strictly for either tasting/reviewing, or for food pairing. It has a very unique character that would allow for unique food pairings you might otherwise never be able to pull off with a typical sour.4.25

 

 

 

 

 

Winey with high carbonation. Flavor is good.

"Belgian-style tripel was artfully soured for 15 months in red-wine barrels and aged on plums."