Rare Sour Nelson
Wild Rose Brewery & Taproom

 

 

 

 

750ml bottle, the latest in Wild Rose's 'Rare' Barrel-aged Series - this one spent 6 months in some Sauvignon Blanc wood.

This beer pours a hazy, pale golden yellow colour, with one very skinny finger of weakly puffy, loosely foamy, and ultimately wispy dirty white head, which leaves pretty much nothing in the way of lace near the glass as it quickly blows off.

It smells of fruity and estery Sauvignon Blanc (one of my favourite white wines), gritty and grainy wheat malt, a bit of lemon juice, a touch of buttery wood, and tame leafy and earthy hop bitters. The taste is more Marlborough Sav Blanc (as wine store employees call it around here) - gooseberry, citrus, and a nice acidity - bready and grainy, pale and wheaten cereal malt, more separate, kind of sugary lemon fruitiness, ethereal cold butter notes, and a still rather subtle leafy and woodsy hoppiness.

The bubbles are quite laid-back in their barely functional frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and mostly smooth, as the robust white wine essences have the good graces to mind their manners here. It finishes off-dry, the malt and fruitiness carrying the day.

Overall, this is a very nicely-rendered wine barrel treated sour beer - it's actually more tart, in the sense of the revered New Zealand terroir. Between the Nelson Sauvin hops, and the Sauvignon Blanc wood, it would be surprising if this didn't come off like they mixed some Oyster Bay with a simple hefeweizen, in about a 3 to 1 ratio, alcohol not included. At any rate, a pleasant tipple, and very approachable.