Cherry Hound
Liquid Art

 

 

Roy Pitz Brewing Company "Cherry Hound"
$8/22 fl. oz. brown glass bottle without freshness dating at the Roy Pitz Barrel House

Notes via stream of consciousness: Interesting label depicting the brewers graining out the mash tun. It's in the same style as their other labels but different in nature. It pours a brilliantly clear ruby-chestnut body beneath a short head of off-white. Unfortunately the head retention is not that good as it's already dropped, leaving only tiny spots of lace behind. The aroma is a little vegetal, and herbal, kind of like a wine that's been mechanically harvested and has too many leaves and stems included in the must, but there's also some dark almost burnt-sugar caramel character and some woodiness that might actually be coming from cherry seeds - who knows? I don't particularly get cherry though, or, really, even a lot of fruitiness. It's OK, but it's far from great. The flavor is neither as "cherry" as I thought it would be, nor nearly as "sour" - it is labeled as a "TART CHERRY INFUSED SOUR ALE". Again, it's OK but far from great. What's there is balanced, combining a lightly sweetish and softly caramelish malt with a delicate bit of fruitiness and a very low level bitterness and soft tartness. It finishes dry with some residual, lingering, kind of generic fruitiness - ahh, I guess it really is more like cherry than anything else. I certainly wouldn't call it a sour ale though, although I'm not sure what else you would call it other than a cherry beer, but it lacks in cherry. Medium-light in body and lightly crisp. Overall... meh. I don't know that I'm disappointed but it could have been so much more than what it is. On the other hand I've paired this with some pan-seared mushrooms topped with shredded Gruyer cheese and a crusty piece of bread and that combination works great. Maybe more of a with-food beer than anything else? That's OK I guess, just be prepared.