Symmetric Orchestra - Passion Fruit
Modern Times Beer

 

 

 

Not an especially pleasant beer, this highlights too many of the worst parts of the sour craze, eschewing beers of thoughtfulness and patience and offering in their place a mess of over-acidified kettle souring, lip service oak chips, and some vague essence of fruit. Passionfruit and mango? Sure, I guess, though it could've been any number of fruits, so indistinct was their character. There's a blast of funk on the nose, but it's as chaotic as the label suggests, those "United Nations of funky cultures" struggling to coexist like their geopolitical counterparts. A touch watery and thin in the body, which only serves to amplify the over-amped acidity. There are examples of fruited kettle-soured beers done right and even at dramatically cheaper pricepoints (Funkwerks' Provincial series comes to mind). It can be done. In this instance, it simply wasn't.