7th Anniversary Ale
Oakshire Brewing

 

Really, really sour. Had to drain pour it. I wonder if it was different at the time of release. Body was super thin and all the roast was gone.

 

 

750 mL bottle poured into a snifter.

Appearance - Black body. Giant khaki head. Never dissipates. Fluffy pillow.

Smell - Cherry. Red wine. Oak and vanilla. Light roastiness. Pretty acidic.

Taste - The wine and cherries are most prominent. Gives it some tartness. Excessive carbonation lends to the acidity. Roasty and a bit metallic. Acidic finish.

Mouthfeel - Way too highly carbonated. The richness can't come through. Medium heavy.

Overall - Eh. I like a wine barrel stout, but this is too much acidity to work very well.

 

 

the complexity of the process here seems to be unrivaled, at least according to the label, blending unreleased sour and dark bourbon barrel aged ales with a new baltic porter and aging it on tart cherries, certainly this is a special showcase of oakshire as a brewery, happy to be sharing a bottle with clay station this afternoon. a dark brown but red tinted brew in the light, heady as heck, dark tanned color bubbles piling up on top of one another with remarkable pace. a pretty sour nose on it, trumps the bourbon, almost oud bruin like, but more complicated elements going on. the cherries can be tasted by not smelled, while the roastiness of the grain is consistent in both. amazing carbonation considering what it is, rather soft on the palate for how intensely flavored it is too. cherries are real tart, the beer is real dry, bitter bakers chocolate in the finish, with an almost maple oaky profile. sourness ramps up as it warms, more of the porter is lost and the wild side comes out. you would never know any of this was lagered, but its irrelevant. delicious beer overall, tough to drink real fast, but i don't wish i could. really enjoying savoring this one awhile.

 

 

 

On tap at the tap and growler the other day.

The beer pours a pretty dark brown color with good head retention and lots of sticky lacing. I haven't had this beer in a while, and my recollection is that the beer has really picked up considerably more of a sour component. The wine and tart cherries really come on strong now, with at most a hint of the stout/baltic porter underlying beer. Mouthfeel is more of the same, and it's really hard to believe that the base beer is an export stout blended with a baltic porter. When this beer was released, it tasted like an imperial baltic porter with some underlying tartness from the sour cherries used in the blend. Now it's exactly the other way around; the porter/stout flavor is barely noticeable (there's at most a hint of coffeee, licorice and vanilla), as you really get a mouthfull of sour fruit at the present time. Mouthfeel is medium bodied to full, with a long, tart cherry finish. Alcohol is well integrated into the flavor profile, though the alcohol really isn't all that high anyway in this beer (7% I believe). The bourbon barrel aging is completely undetectable now, both on the nose and the palate.

Hmmmm.... I bought several bottles of this stuff, thinking it would be an interesting beer to age. Now I'm having second thoughts, as the sour component has really dominated the flavor profile in this beer, and my guess is that it's just going to become increasingly sour. Not sure that's something I'm looking forward to. Oh well...