Flower to Flower
Cellarmaker Brewing Co. - The Rare Barrel

A: Poured into a tulip glass to a light golden yellow beer which is topped by a fluffy massive white head which fades slowly to a collar around the glass with minimal lacing
S; Smells of citrus rinds, light sourness, oak, funk and a touch of pale malt
T: Taste is faded wet hop goodness, nice citrus, touch of pine, a pleasant amount of acidity with a good bit of funk with some barnyard and a touch of band aid. On the finish there's some more lemony sourness before the citrus comes back along with some cracker like malt and some lingering funk and band aid.
M: This beer has a body which is on the lighter side of things. Carbonation is pleasant and effervescent while the beer has a drying finish due to the acidity.
O: Overall this is interesting. I wish I would have gotten to it sooner but it's still a pretty enjoyable beer to drink. Nice flavors and complexity.

Pours mostly clear goldenrod with a finger of white foam. Hops in this sour ipa are not in the background, I smell them right away with the funk, wood, sour citrus, and wild yeast. Taste hits the sour lemon, grapefruit, and orange, with oak and slight funk, before the hops cut in with sharp bitter grass and herbs. Such aggressiveness makes the tastes clash a bit, with a finish that is complex but not very inviting to the palate. Feel is hoppy, sour, slightly acidic and funky, with the identity kind of mashed up together, not as streamlined as sour ipas I have had before.

 

750 ml. bottle.
Moderate pour yields a one and a half inch white head over a hazy, light golden body with some nice lacing. Nose of slight funk, citrus (lemon), and the slightest pine resin. Taste of white grapefruit, lemon, a tad lime, and bit of oak. Finishing fairly dry and inviting another sip. Tastes more like a dry hopped and/or wet hopped Belgian Saison, but what do I know? Overall, refreshing and quite delicious. I'm glad these guys finally shipped to Vermont as this is my first taste of any of their offerings and I'm impressed. Cheers!!!

 

Had this at the Bistro's barrel aged festival 2018. Pours a yellow/golden color with average clarity and 1/3" white head. Rare Barrel makes like a blonde, red and dark base for all their beers essentially. This looks like the blonde. Its a bit hazy as there is a hearty dose of wet hop dry hopping going on. The dry hopping is evident, but with traditional bittering hops, and I think it works. You get that familiar domestic green tree and citrus peel zest feel to it: wet hop Chinook and Cascade baby.

Because those are late addition hops, you don't get the high degree of bitterness usually associated with them. Reminiscent of that Utah brewery's dry hop sour they put in a can, but a little bit more complex and a lot more expensive. I like the relative drying effect of the perceptible but not overpowering oak barrels.

I really dug the use of old school wet hops here, really did deliver in terms of what the commercial tugjob advertised in that old school citrus all up in a 6 in the 10pt sour scale. Pretty clean stuff.