Blueberry Chocolate Coffee and Vanilla Sour
Collective Arts Brewing

 

 

 

 

Woo hoo! A colorful, tasteful mix of flavors. A quiz for your taste buds.

It pours deep reddish purple. Amazing color. The aroma is all those things in the name! You can smell each of them. The taste is a nice mix of all the above, with a good amount of tartness (very little of it from hops). The finish a little light and thin.

Recommended. A nice treat for sour brew lovers.

 

 

473 mL can from the LCBO; dated Nov 2 2020 and served slightly chilled.

Pours a deep, cloudy reddish-violet colour, topped with one finger of foamy, pinkish fuchsia-coloured head that dissipates within a minute or two. It leaves behind little of interest - a sickly thin collar and a few patches of film on the surface, but no lace whatsoever - oh well, at least it looked good while it lasted. The coffee comes through nicely on the nose, pairing well with the blueberry, cacao and subtle vanilla aromas. Beyond that, I'm getting suggestions of currant, grape, lemon and wheaty malt sweetness - altogether it's very enticing.

It's novel, I'll give it that - hints of vanilla are noticeable early on, scattered amidst notes of tart lactic acidity, blueberry and cacao nibs. Suggestions of chocolate syrup, blackberry and lemon come through by mid-sip; the coffee is an ethereal presence throughout, borderline noticeable if you look for it, but never really asserting itself. Touch of vanilla and roastiness at the finish, with a sour, fruity aftertaste of berry, lemon, lactic acidity; just a touch of cacao outlasts everything else. Medium in body, with lively carbonation that prickles the tongue and froths up just a little, resulting in a very smooth, satisfying texture. Gulping it back was no effort at all.

Final Grade: 4.27, an A-. Collective Arts' Blueberry Chocolate Coffee & Vanilla Sour is juggling a lot of flavours, but they do combine together rather well. I don't think it's quite as good as last year's blueberry/cacao nib sour - with this one, the vanilla fails to add much, while the coffee - despite being present in the aroma - is not enough of a factor in the flavour profile. More coffee would've helped this one IMO, but I'm addicted to the stuff so I'm hardly unbiased. Well worth sampling if you can find it - love it or hate it, it'll be a unique and memorable glass of beer.

Blueberry, Chocolate, Coffee and Vanilla, check. Flavour bomb! Blueberry is sweet and tart and heightened to with the bright acidity and roasty chocolate notes emphasized by coffee and Cocoa.
I am not very educated about Sour styles so maybe under rating this. I don’t recommend for the winter. Maybe a hot humid summer day? Drinking this I feel like I was bitch slapped with fruit flavours...

 

 

 

Don't like coffee, and this didn't have a lot of coffee beyond the nose. Light, bright tartness, nice cacao, nice berry.

Fantastic head production; good retention. Head is a dark pink/light violet, while body is a darker red/purple blend, slightly murky.

Surprising amount of chocolate and coffee on the nose, coming across more as a fruited stout than a fruited sour. Vanilla, tannins, and berries; not particularly identifiable as blueberries, but that's hardly a knock. Deep, rich, tart - and smells like a much higher ABV brew than 5.5%.

Very, very tart and sour on the palate, with the berries and whatever souring agents they selected combining potently up front. After that, the coffee and chocolate (approximately in that order) provide a rich, roasty, smooth background, but the strength is reversed from the nose: what smells like a rich chocolate/coffee beer with some sourness becomes a clean sour ale with some chocolate and coffee. Vanilla mostly vanishes. As with the nose, I don't necessarily get blueberries specifically; it's slightly less bright than raspberry, and not quite as sweet as blackberry.

Much thicker feel than 5.5% ABV warrants; lively and drinkable with moderate to high pucker.

A collab brew with Stillwater.

Appearance - Pours a deep blueberry with two fingers of deep blue/almost pink head.

Smell - earthy and leafy hops, blueberry, cocoa, coffee bean, vanilla, and earthy yeast.

Taste - earthy and leafy hops upfront. The tart blueberry and hint of vanilla comes through next. The cocoa, and coffee bean get lost in translation from the tartness of the blueberry. The earthy yeast rounds out the brew.

Mouthfeel - Medium bodied with moderate carbonation. Finishes tart with the blueberry and hint of coffee lingering.

Overall - A unique brew that certainly delivered on the blueberry front. I feel as though there are way too many competing ingredients to make it a true stand out. Nonetheless, an intriguing brew.

 

Review from notes. LCBO purchase for around $4 CDN.

Appearance - Dark purple brew, with purple head. Good staying power and the body of the beer is relatively clear.

Smell - Some blueberry, light chocolate aroma and hints of vanilla.

Taste - Like the nose again, no surprises. A Nice dusting of chocolate powder and hints of vanilla. Middling blueberry sourness at the beginning and end. The name is appropraite because it tastes like all of the things in the title, although coffee is most subdued.

Mouthfeel - Medium bodied, smooth and easy to drink.

Overall - Really good sour that tastes the way you expect it to. Worth a tipple or two for sure.