Melonious Blond
Cascade Brewing / Raccoon Lodge & Brewpub

i had never even heard of this one before i saw it on a menu this weekend, had to have it! 2017 vintage, done with cantaloupe and summer kiss melon, how exciting! a little more amber colored, rusty orange, than expected, some haze too, and a high rising but fast fading soda style fizz from the bottle. it smells less sour and acetic than some of the other older cascade beers ive had from this window, super wood forward, mature and funky, but also with enough of the fruit holding on to be fully identifiable as melon, how interesting! there is a sharpness to the taste but unlike a lot of sours its up front instead of late onset, so once the acidity washes over, its all fruit and oak, juicy ripe melon but also a more bitter and lush sort of rind note, remarkable fresh and forward for this being an older bottle now. perhaps a little more malt in the mix than the delicate melon needs, toasted or kilned or something, not sweet at all, but still making this overly sturdy. i get a light brine note, green strawberry, papaya juiciness, and a lot of white wine character, perhaps this was done in old wine barrels. some bretty funk becomes more prominent as it warms but it never gets more acidic which i like, and it has plenty of bubbles even though the head is long gone. this felt fancy on its own, but even more because we enjoyed it with such a culinarily ambitious dinner, this is fit for any table no doubt. a relic from the very deep library of cascade, an unforgettable treat!