Preservation
Urban Family Brewing Co.

 

 

 

A: The beer is crystal clear cherry red in color and has a light to moderate amount of visible carbonation. It poured with a quarter finger high pink head that rapidly died down, leaving just a narrow collar of off white bubbles around the edge of the glass.
S: Moderate aromas of berries are present in the nose - raspberries stand out in particular.
T: The taste follows the smell but has more of a balance between the flavors of blackberries and raspberries. There is a light to moderate amount of sourness.
M: It feels light- to medium-bodied on the palate and has a low to moderate amount of carbonation. There is some tartness in the finish.
O: The berry flavors in this sour are definitely "jammy" and nature and didn't seem as tart as one might expect.

Serving type: bottle

 

 

Pour reinforces the berry assertion made on the label as the body pretty well blends in with my red table cloth. Crisp rosewood with a medium-thin head and good retention. Fine, tightly knit bubbles make a fuzzy off-rose/white structure that is like the carbonation equivalent of microfleece.

Nose leans more heavily into the raspberries than the blackberries, with a slight tart anchor keeping it from delving too far into the sweet/fruity side of things.

There is an undeniable raspberry sweetness to the tongue as well, but again it is held back from launching into just berry juice in a manner which I appreciate. It really does reflect the berries themselves quite well in this. My mom had raspberry brambles and I have many memories of picking tons of fresh berries growing up. They are not as sweet when fresh as most raspberry flavours would have you believe, and this is reflected in this beer. There's a berry tartness (which makes it taste like liquid actual berries as opposed to the raspberry flavours most often proffered), and an almost... earthy vegetal quality that evokes late summer sunshine and the navigation of thorns and even though the beer is not granular in any way, I still have that sensation due to the memories of seeds and other various components found on the canes.
There's a nice tart finish that once again carries an undeniable raspberry-ness to it.
I've rambled on brambles and those red berries, but I have yet to mention the other berry listed on the label.
That's because the raspberry fairly well dominates for me. If I didn't see mention of them on the label, I would pick them out on neither the nose nor the palate. This is fine because the beer is really good as a fruited (berried) sour as what it is, but it's too bad because I have a personal preference for blackberries in general.

The body is lively with carbonation and it drinks dangerously easily. The tart finish lingers and invites that swell of saliva at the back of the tongue that I find with all sours of different stripes.

This beer is a really enjoyable example of what it is. I'm not always in the mood for heavily fruited/berried beers like this, but this is really well done and one I would gladly grab again.