5 Deep
Aslan Brewing Company

a cool anniversary mixed culture brew from these guys, thanks to my friend for popping this when we were over, ive had some real tasty aslan wild stuff, and this is another good one, aged mostly or entirely in red wine barrels, that treatment gives this a lot of character, and i am surprised to learn its only 5% abv, it presents a little more robust than that. awesome label art, the bottle opens with a pop and immediately excited airy white bubbles start gushing out. it rouses the sediment a bit but we dont lose much volume overall. this has a rust color to it, a little haze, and a beautiful inch and a half of super light and wispy white head, tiny bubbles constantly rising up to join it, perhaps over conditioned in the bottle, but better than the alternative in my opinion. the nose on this is cool, peach and apricot, dark red berry from the wine, oak and vanilla and tannins from the barrels, and some sweetness left in here from the grain. lots of funk too, medicinal bretty character, brux type with iodine and wet farm animal, modest acidity even some acetic character but its balanced out by the fuller grain base and i think it highlights some of the complexity in this. elite level funkiness in the flavor, super mature and woody and well developed and the sourness is there too but its funk first for me, stone fruit again, dried mango, golden raisin, some cooked or stewed grain character which adds to this. prickly carbonation, some weird mineral and old wood character at the end, pretty complex little beer but also rather drinkable. medicinal in a good way, summery but hearty too, and i think a worthy beer of their anniversary. the red wine barrels add a lot to this, and overall its fantastic, gushing and all.