Aunt Sally - Sweet Potato
Lagunitas Brewing Company

kettle sour aged in red wine barrels with sweet potato. not a fruited kettle sour by style, as potato isnt a fruit, but does the presence of a root vegetable automatically make whatever its in a field beer? good question. this is one of the cool little experimental projects lagunitas does, or did, from time to time, take a lineup staple and do something fun or even outlandish with it. i have not encountered a lot of sweet potato beers over the years so this is cool, not that they really seem to add a lot of flavor, i guess its earthy and starchy, but it seems more about the body, a little fuller feeling than the normal aunt sally, still kind of wheaty too. the red barrel is the more interesting part, neat with its tannins and the clean sourness of the base beer, to me its like red currant and puckery cherry, with actually a white wine aspect too believe it or not. much less hoppy than the original, perhaps barrels and potatoes instead of dry hops, it lacks that refreshing juiciness. a little funk to this, perhaps picked up in the barrel, notes of orange peel and blackberry, maybe a honey note to the sweet potato side of it, a little grainy, sharp but not over the top acidic, smoothed some by the wood. really unique beer, not epic in overall refinement or anything, but way better than novelty level too. one of those projects that never really went anywhere, but maybe could have. aunt sally was always such a great base for experimentation, i miss that beer!