Passion Fruit Guava
Sawdust City Brewing Co.

 

 

 

473 ml can served cold into a pint glass. LCBO purchase for about $3.50 CDN. Canned July 11, 2019.

Appearance - Hazy, pale straw color with hints of peach. A relatively small half finger of delicate white head forms and fizzles away pretty quickly. Very spotty lacing.

Smell - Peach and passionfruit show up and something more tropical, certainly could be guava. Nose isn't too intense but is quite pleasant.

Taste - Light and watery with some tartness and gentle suggestions of passionfruit and to a lesser extent guava and papaya. Possibly even some peach in there. Peppery flavors on the close.

Mouthfeel - Very fizzy, probably a bit too much so. Finish is dry and body is pretty light.

Overall - A decent flavored Berliner, but this one's just a bit to gassy and watery for my liking. The Passionfruit and guava are added in the right amounts, they are present, but not overwhelming, although the peppery finish detracts somewhat. Also seems to improve slightly as it warms. Worth a try and would probably be better on a hotter summer day.

473 mL can from the LCBO; dated Jul 11 2019 and served well chilled.

Pours a foggy pale straw yellow colour; situated atop is nearly an inch of loose, soapy white head that settles off over the next two minutes or so, generating a modest-sized band of lace in the process. A bubbly collar of froth lives on, surrounding a filmy layer upon the surface... looks like a typical pale wheat ale, which is more than I can say for most BWs. Smells lemony and quite tart, with lots of lactic acidity; there are notes of tropical fruit, too, but I'd be lying if I said I could discern the difference between the passion fruit and guava. I'm also getting a hint of sour/underripe stone fruit.

Pretty tasty, and a seriously refreshing little bugger, too - its grainy wheat malt backdrop is immediately overrun by sour lemony tartness, which pretty much runs the show until you gulp it back. Towards the finish, that's when the passion fruit and guava make their presence fully known, blunting the sourness and generating a fruity, lightly tart aftertaste that lingers briefly. Light in body, with assertive carbonation that prickles the palate continuously, which works out well in the context of this light, fruity, sour ale. I don't think of most sours as being sessionable, but I'd make an exception for this.

Final Grade: 4.05, an A-. Sawdust City's Passion Fruit Guava made for an appealing tipple, and it's actually downright approachable by BW standards - BAs unfamiliar with sour styles could consider this one about as safe an introduction as any. That's because its juicy-sweet nature (courtesy of the tropical fruit duo) counteracts the sharpness of the lactic acidity very effectively, resulting in a fruited kettle sour with deftly balanced flavours. This is based on their Coriolis Effect, which to its credit is a quality, to-style example of a Berliner Weisse... but I'd take Passion Fruit Guava over that any day of the week.