Sour The System
White Pony Microbrewery

750ml bottle - an oak-aged Italian gueuze, produced at Panil, of course.

This beer pours a hazy, medium golden yellow colour, with one finger of weakly puffy, loosely foamy, and well bubbly ecru head, which leaves some approaching landfall profile lace around the glass as it quickly blows off.

It smells of sour dark fruit (cherries, plums, and red grapes), a pleasant musty funkiness, plain white cheese, a bit of crackery graininess, faint woody notes, and some very subtle leafy, weedy, and musky floral green hop bitters. The taste is more sour, now indistinct black fruitiness, a heady musty funk (both cheese and barnyard in essence), some vanilla-forward oakiness, further aged lemon rind notes, an overmatched bready and grainy pale malt, white wine lees, and a sort of spicy and yet dead grassy hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly timid in its insouciant-seeming frothiness, the body an adequate middleweight, and sort of smooth, as the silken oaken character goes a long way in taming the savage beasties. It finishes off-dry, the malt, mixed tart fruitiness, and gentle lingering funk making a day of it.

Overall, this is a well-made, true-to-style offering, with a nicely laid-back funk quotient. It would be interesting to see what 10 more years would do to this one, but I have a feeling that I'm just going to be happy with the current experience. Good stuff, and worth checking out, especially if you're afraid of that big bad sour/funk ghost.