Gypsy Funk
8 Wired Brewing Co.

A: Poured into a Duvel tulip to a hazy light gold topped by a dense finger and a half of white head which retains well but fades slowly to a collar around the edge of the glass with minimal lacing
S: Smells of peaches and stone fruit with some nice funk along with a hit of sourness.
T: Taste is nice dry hopped sour grassy notes with some stone fruits and peaches. Slight oak and a decent hint of funk and vanilla. Swallow is more stone fruits with a little melon and slight vanilla along with some lingering tartness.
M: This beer in on the lighter side of medium in body with a slightly slick mouthfeel. Carbonation is effervescent and slightly prickly while the beer has a drying finish.
O: Overall this one is decent. It was probably better fresh. What's there is solid but it isn't very loud. It tastes like a dialed down Humulus Rueuze.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

500ml bottle - yet more sour brew from this antipodean brewery that used to be so good at just providing simple IPAs, and such - sigh.

This beer pours a mostly clear, pale golden yellow colour, with a near-teeming amount of puffy, loosely foamy, and fizzy off-white head, which leaves a bit of sudsy wavecrest lace around the glass as it lazily recedes.

It smells of edgy orange, white grapefruit, and lemon citrus rind, a further Marlborough gooseberry and white wine grape thing, musty (and thankfully un-Brett-like) yeast, and some testy leafy, grassy, and slightly perfumed floral green hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy pale malt, a lesser caramel sweetness, muddled tropical fruit, a further typical New Zealand (I know that's probably not the case) lemon and vanilla-forward oaked white wine acerbity, a touch of Brettanomyces unpleasantness, and more genial leafy, weedy, and floral verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly laid-back in its sort of swirling frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and actually more or less smooth, with a nice airy creaminess swatting away the invasive funky and hoppy interlopers. It finishes off-dry, the vinous fruitiness and mild earthy funkiness kind of carrying the lingering day.

Overall, this is a pretty heady, and generally enjoyable version of this new world style, the 'dry hopped' sour ale, as the native Kiwi hops do well to sublimate the funkitude so ready to party and get down here. Easy to drink, I'm duly surprised to spout out, and that's all I believe that I really have left to say on the matter.