Here And There - Blueberries And Vanilla
Tired Hands Brewing Company

 

 

750 ml bottle poured into a flute

A- A clear bright red with a purple tint and small pink head.

S- Tart, blueberries, funk, oak, touch of vanilla.

T- Sour, blueberries, lemons, oak, cheesy funk, hints of vanilla.

M- Smooth, medium body.

O- Even with some age the blueberries are still strong in this. I will say this is middle of the pack for the Here & There series, the base beer works with blueberries but the base beer doesn’t support the blueberries like it did peaches.

 

750mL bottle received as part of a ninja box from CanConPhilly. No date on the dark green bottle. Odd presentation. On the top is a blank bottle cap, but once that's been pried off you're staring at a cork! After hunting down my rarely used wine bottle opener and carefully pulling out the cork, which was below the top of the bottle and came out with a very soft pop, I poured it into a stemmed snifter.

Initially a reddish color, with frothy, pink foam, it took on a dark burgundy color in the glass. The frothy pink head disappeared almost immediately.

At first the vanilla was the dominant aroma, but the blueberries soon became a major player as well. Initially the funk was in the background, but as things warmed, it stepped up as well.

Sweet and tart flavor to this beer, in almost equal measure. Blueberries are far from the sweetest of berries unless someone tosses a boatload of sugar in as accompaniment, and that has clearly not happened here. I think most sweetness on hand here comes from the vanilla beans. The tartness of the blueberries is ably abetted by the funk of the wild yeast. The two are superbly balanced. The finish is dry and tart, but also soft and a little sweet.

Medium bodied, with a more dominant carbonation than I feared when I opened the bottle to such a small amount of noise.

I don't know a thing about buckwheat, so I'm not sure what it added to the beer, but I liked this, and would absolutely drink it again if given the chance. Thanks, Matt!

Pours a lovely, clear dark blueberry-plum-red wine color with a very short-lived, fizzy and soda-like purple-tinted head that quickly settles into a wisp and a thin crown.

Tart, sour aroma with a touch of funk. There’s a ghost of vanilla and some definite blueberry.

Light tasting at first, with a nice mix of blueberry tartness, sourness and some clear cheesy funk. Slight mineral water in the finish. Soft, drying, tart, sour blueberry juice lingers in the aftertaste.

Creamy feeling for the style with strong fizziness cutting through.

This isn’t super-funky, but it’s definitely funnier than the two others in the series I’ve tried to date (plum and megablend). It’s also the first of the three I’ve opened that wasn’t a gusher, but with much stronger fizziness, which negatively impacts the look and feel, IMO, but not tragically so. Overall, it’s got some nice depth of character while still remaining relatively light and drinkable.