Baby Bear
Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project

 

 

Going through the Crooked Stave pantry, it must be clearing time. The combination of blueberries and lactose might seem foreign to beer novices, but the combination on a sour ale gives a lushness to the fruit without interfering with the sour golden ale within. Again, the brewery excels with a fruity sour ale with their signature all over it.

Not exactly meant for babies, the milk sugars in Baby Bear give the pie filling scent a boost in the presence of a fully fermented blueberry scent. Hints of oak, burlap, hay and rosé wine. Although a cream candy scent comes with the blueberry, the beer is peppery and tart to the nose. Golden, ruby and chestnut hues layer in the glass with a faint frothy floating impatiently above. Then that light candied sweetness shows a scant taffy taste on the early palate.

The sweetness quickly lifts from the middle palate and lets the residual tartness, flavor and feel of blueberries to trend more like red wine as the ale rolls along. The lactose resists to fade and lingers behind to make the blueberries taste more like blueberries, keeping the unique flavor identity of the fruit. Sourness builds in and goes well beyond wine and into a cidery, citrusy, gooseberry acidity that's racy on the late palate with a peppery oak character waiting to balance the milk sugars.

Medium bodied for sour ale, the effects of lactose prevent the ale from complete dryness because of its balancing character. Still refreshing, crisp and briskly earthen, the beer is everything you want in sour ale and with an aura of blueberry cream candy for a special culinary tilt.

Dark copper with ruby highlights. There's a fingernail of dishwater white around the rim and in the middle about the size of a quarter. The aroma is of lactose, oak, and faint blueberries. I'm tasting very tart blueberries with notes of raspberry. The mouth is highly carbonated, highly acidic, and yet oddly creamy and smooth due to the lactose and oak.

 

 

 

another blueberry beer from these guys, which must put them in the lead for most different blueberry sours made by one brewery, holy cow. somehow i am not yet tired of it, and they have all been different enough to be appealing. this is sort of like the collaboration they did with omnipollo with the raspberries, introducing lactose to a fruited sour. i think the blueberries work better than the raspberries in this, less tartness inherent in the fruit, more of a jammy earthiness in the blueberries, which makes the lactose seem more compatible and the oak bring out the berries more, i liked this quite a lot. there isnt a ton of sweetness from the milk sugar, but it does serve to soften some of the harsher acidity, and while this is still quite sour, i think its more drinkable with the lactose than it would be without it. the blueberry tastes natural and pretty forward, jammy and sweet for a moment, with a red wine note as the bacterial tartness kicks in. its smooth feeling, not broken down by the acid, but still well short of creamy or anything, and the wood extends the finish in a warming almost wintery way. this is clever, but very much in line with what crooked stave has been up to lately. pricey in the bottle, but worth it if you like their work. i wonder what they will do with blueberries next...