Bookends
Side Project Brewing

Gold with a clear complexion, though the last pour of it definitely wasn't! There's a fingernail of dishwater white on top. The aroma is of tart chardonnay. I'm tasting a lot of orange and citrus and it's exceptionally bitter. The mouth is highly carbonated, crisp, and dry.

 

 

 

 

 

Pouted from a 750 mL bottle. The color is very pretty yellow hazy color. The aroma is a bit of funk with a big explosion of citrus, love it. The taste follows the smell without the typical SP acidity and a big orange flavor. Its an awesome beer and tasty nonetheless.

 

 

Pours a glowing orange reminiscent of a glowing DragonBall. Head is a finger in height and off-white in color, but retention isn't long. Aroma is peach, tangerine, apricot with light lemon, grassy, and herbal hops behind. It opens up fleshly fruit and quickly turns to lightly sour, which is maintains through the finish. Flavor profile is apricot, peach, lemon, dark fruits, cantaloupe, and melon. It, again, opens up with a fleshy, navel fruit consistency that breaks away to reveal lemon and then melons. It carries a light sourness throughout with the peak coming about 1/3 of the way into the flavor profile, locking up the jaw, before easing away. Mouth feel is smooth and still with a very fine prickly effervescence just as the onset. It has a medium-thin consistency. Overall, well developed allowing a smooth transition of flavor with a modest hit of sourness.

Served in a 12oz Side Project snifter from a 750mL bottle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appearance is beautifully glowing, shimmering orange, only slightly foggy but uniformly so. A khaki blanket quickly recedes to nothing but a still, slick surface.

Smell seems kind of harshly acidic, hinting at acetic, with notes of splintery oak, milky aged farmer's cheese, and a melange of citrus notes like an essential oil diffuser.

Taste is less extreme than aroma suggests. While quite tart, the sourness is more mild and the round, smooth body helps it slide down well. All kinds of citrus comes out on the palate, and it pairs well enough with a bright white oakiness. A sting surfaces and gradually increases with each semi-dry swallow until, okay yes, it does become too acidic over time.

I really admire how juicy this wild ale is, while not loosing the earthy barnyard funk backbone. The mandarin oranges, lemon, lime, clementine, pear and green apple explode off the funky yeast, resulting in a juicy sour conclusion to each sip. This fruit bouquet is center of smell, with yeast. Decent wood, bread and wine in the taste as well, adding to some yogurt taste at the beginning. Acidity is cumulative.

Where the spontaneous and often wild tasting character of American sour ale can leave the palate with an earthen, peppery and musty taste, the collaborative efforts of Side Project and 4 Hands breweries leads them to the precipice of citrus. Copious amounts of mandarin, lime and clementine brightens up the session while contributing their own unique succulence and zing.

Hazy goldenrod and even carrying an orange stained hue, the sour ale's light body thwarts its robust carbonation into a racy champagne pour. Jaw tightening aromas hit the nose with a sharp citrus sour twinge. Its acidic scent activates the saliva glands as the suggestions of dried woods, leather, attic-like must and a brisk waft of sea air gives the scent a robust and rustic balance to the fruit. Tepid sweetness graces the front of the tongue with a quick hitting taffy, sourdough and candied orange simplicity.

The malts effortlessly bounce off of the middle palate, carried away by a stern carbonated bite. What's left in its wake is the perfume of mandarin orange peel, coriander, dry french cider, lime, lemon, crabapple, gooseberry, passionfruit and kiwi. Some additions, some natural, the beer's yeast esters blend with the piquant sourness of the beer for a shockingly strong level of acidity that washes away any thirst with ease and leaving the palate dry, spicy and sprinkled with citronella once again.

Light in body, the combination of acidity, carbonation and a fully attenuated character means that any attempt at malty weight is rendered ineffective. Dry, crisp and highly refreshing, the beer trends spicy with a pep of acetone, vodka and earthen balsa in a curaçao liquor kind of way.