Apple Pie American Sour Ale
Loveland Aleworks

i think two things can be true here, they absolutely nailed this from a proximity to apple pie taste side of things, and its almost grotesquely artificial to me, especially on the apple, like this level of concentrated apple intensity almost cant come from real fruit, and so this feels at once genuine and exceedingly cheap, but like, it tastes good and thats the point right? a few things i really like about this first. the base kettle sour is excellent, its been a staple in their lineup for ages with one fruit or another, and its solid, light and clean with a little grain personality and not too tart to drink in volume, the sweet spot for me, so that is a factor here of course, very good foundation, that is not debatable, light lemon to the lactic part of it, easy without being thin, bubbly and all even if it doesnt hold much head, its great. the other thing working for it is that its fruit in front of spice, not real fruit i dont think, but its not like the cinnamon part of this runs away with it, which can happen, so i think the proportionality is actually pretty good, and the apple and the sourness together are nice. also, it actually tastes like apple pie, maybe not your grandmothers, but certainly like the prewrapped ones you get at gas stations, which is still apple pie to some extent. the sweetness is pretty fierce in the middle, which candies it all up a little too much. notes of vanilla and caramel and clove and indeed even the crust, deeply stewed apple and spiced cider character. maybe i am being too critical of this flavored beer, which is what it is, its not made with apple pie ingredients it doesnt seem like, nor with actual apple pies, but with flavoring, and there are good flavorings out there. nobody expects lemon lime gatorade to taste like lemons and limes, and nobody critiques it because it doesnt. this is basically that. delicious for what it is and spot on to the stated flavor mission without really doing it in an ingredient driven or even really artistic way, its a good base sour, flavored to oblivion, plain and simple, and its effective. id love to know if its possible, by these guys or others, to hit apple pie this well with say, i dont know, apples? maybe time will tell, but until then, you can do a lot worse than this, and even if i only want a little, i have to respect the way it turned out. its liquid apple pie. curious what others thought of this...