Blue Bird
Birdland Brewing Company

I can't taste the blueberry or smell them just taste a bitter burnt chocolate with a bad aftertaste

 

 

 

 

 

A khaki, fine blanket head lives temporarily over this hazy brownish beer, leaving minimal lace on the walls of a snifter glass.

The aroma is remarkably similar to a toasted blueberry bagel. Light roasted chocolate and citrus stands out against a nutty backdrop.

Modest sour blueberry flesh is followed by balanced sweet-bitterness, with the bitterness surrounding roasted chocolate malt. A moderately present finish passes fairly quickly.

The body is moderate to full, with a slick texture and modest carbonation.

My tastes tend to be averse to blueberry beers, but this one was rather enjoyable. And possibly the best one I have yet to sample. I enjoyed it while reading in a back corner on a late September afternoon.

Not much of a chocolate taste. Heavy lacing. Dark with thicker lacing. Blueberry is very overpowering. Ok beer to try once

This brew was served on tap at The Bee Hive Brew Pub in Canandaigua, New York. It arrived in a “The Just Beer Project” pint glass, showing a ruddy Tootsie Roll brown coloring. A two finger head of dark khaki bubbles left soft and pillowy mountains of lacing after a nice retention. Dense haze appeared through rays of sunlight, although this was not accompanied by sediment. Carbonation appeared to be medium. The aroma consisted of intense dried and syrupy fresh blueberries, darkly roasted chocolate malts, soured brown and caramel grainy rawness, soft grapefruity citric hoppiness and orangey rind, cold charcoal, almond nuttiness, chocolate milk sweetness, pollen of wild flowers, buttercream icing, and bright sweetness of red Starburst candies. The taste gave sour and fruity raw blueberry flesh, Concord grape skin sweetness and bitterness, roasted chocolate and caramel malts, chalked black malts, sweeter honey notes, stale marmalade, dark cacao nibs, roasted coffee beans, smoked tobacco leafiness, clayed mineral and earthy muddiness, smooth oat, graphite, and lightly tannic cooked barley. The body was medium to full, and the carbonation was medium. The mouth was left oiled and slick following hearty slurp, smack, cream, and froth. Eventual dryness crept in, chipping out the edges of the coating. The abv was appropriate, and the beer sipped away quickly.

Overall, this beer really shows how much blueberry one can back into a beverage. They greatly accomplish their goal of saturating a nice base porter with the wonderful freshness of that dark little fruit. At no point does this adjunctive ever become too much. If anything we could have used more of it to hold against the roasty and smoky dark malt base. The fuller body lends a hard slurp to the lip. This actually helps to legitimize the beer, and the chosen ingredient, helping it steer away from being a novelty. This was a new beer for us, from a new brewery, in a new taproom, so the experience alone was well worth it. For anyone looking, you’ll find a nicely arranged beer here, that satisfies the darker, grainier side of the palate, but also its zesty, fruity side.