Cosmic Dancer
New Braunfels Brewing Company

 

 

 

 

 

This is without a doubt a beer to transport you where you have not been with a beer. First taste is very sour, followed by a red wine. Sip and enjoy the magic carpet ride.

 

Poured from a bottle into a tulip glass. Lovely dark beer with nice head good lacing. Strong sour smell and taste. Taste of sour cherries, apples and some nice maltiness. Enjoyable!

I just had this fresh Sour Weizenbock from New Braunsfels Brewing bottled May 2017 according to the bottle (it is not retired). Anyway, I thought it was a pretty good sour.

Look: The color is jet black, totally black, and there was not much of a head.

Aroma: green apple and some oak, dark fruits maybe

Taste: The taste is primarily wheat and tart green apple, as well dark fruit, some grapefruit and oak.

Feel: medium body and medium carbonation, crisp and tasty.

 

Poured at 46°F from a 500ml bottle into a tulip. Consumed on 13Apr16.
LOOK: Dark brown in color with an orange-yellow luster. A fingers worth of brown foam rapidly dissipates into a khaki line within 10 seconds. Rising bubbles are moderate in quantity and both medium and large in size. There is no lacing.
SMELL: Strong aromas of sour green apple and tobacco suggest a brew that is dependent on the yeast and souring bacteria profile. Mild oak, wheat, and earthy yeast aromas along with subtle vanilla, dark cherry, plum, and fig aromas present a nice balance and complexity to the smell.
TASTE: As I would have guessed from the aromas, strong tobacco and sour green apple flavors intially burst onto the palate. The barrel-aging is made apparent along with a partial weizenbock as mild oak and wheat flavors immediately trail. Further barrel-aging and weizenbock characteristics are displayed as mild flavors of vanilla and subtle flavors of fig, dark cherry, and plum flow on to the taste buds. Mild earthy yeast and subtle banana flavors finish off this taste theatrical as all previous flavors persist.
FEEL: Medium-bodied and moderately carbonated. Goes down somewhat smooth. Finishes with a strong and unpleasant dryness. The sourness from the beer playfully agitates the tongue.
NOTE: A deliciously complex Ale. The "saur" is definitely achieved. All of the characteristics of the weizenbock come through nicely, although they could have been a bit stronger. I'm not sure what batch this is or when it was bottled, but I do know it was their most recent one. Having tried a bottle from last year, I would have to conclude that this year's was better.

 

 

 

Undated bottle at 50 degrees into shaker
Aroma sour with roasted grain
Head large (Eight cm, aggressive pour), light brown, fizzy, rapidly diminishing to two mm ring and partial layer
Lacing none
Body dark brown, opaque
Flavor – initially markedly sour then slightly sweet with some roasted malt; no hops, no alcohol,no diacetyl
Palate medium, creamy, fizzy

Not bad but the initial hit of sourness can be surprising. Appearance 4, Aroma 4, Flavor 4, Palate 4, Overall 4

 

 

 

 

BOTTLE: 500ml. Brown glass. Branded pry-off pressure cap. Appealing label art.

Acquired: At an Austin, TX bottle shop.

Reviewed live at low altitude in Austin, TX. Side-poured with standard vigor as no carbonation issues are anticipated.

Vintage: 2014.
ABV: <None listed.>
Style: Sour weizenbock (per the label). I'm reviewing as an American wild ale since sour weizenbock isn't a proverbial "thing."
Serving temp: Cold.
Serving vessel: Goblet.
Expectations: Above average (given the brewery).

No bubble show forms as it's poured.

HEAD: Half-finger wide. Khaki colour. Decent creaminess. Soft-looking enough. Not real thick or full. Leaves no lacing as it recedes.

Retention: Poor (~40 seconds).

BODY: Opaque black with cola-esque bubbles. No yeast or hop sediment is visible.

Appears well-carbonated. Not a great looking wild ale/sour, nor is it appealing as a weizenbock. Generally inviting, I suppose...

AROMA: Powdered sugar atop tart fruit is the dominant note here, but the fruit itself is vague and indistinct...grape, maybe? Sugarcane, faint oak with concomitant barrel sugars, and a kiss of vanilla. Red-wine soaked wood has a heavy presence in this aroma. Belgian sugars lend it some increased sweetness.

I don't find any German yeast character; there's no clove or banana, for example. And there's no real fresh wheat presence. Bock malting is present, sure.

Aromatic intensity: average.

The red wine character is the most interesting aspect of this aroma, but while it's tart it's not really sour per se. I'm not quite sure what they're after with this one, but it's poor for a weizenbock and underwhelming as a sour.

TASTE & TEXTURE: Sourness is minimal - 1-2/10 in terms of intensity at most. The beer is tart up front, but boy does it have structural issues; the structural balance is completely off, with most of the flavour coming through in the second half - departing completely from the off-puttingly dry and rough red wine-soaked barrel wood character that dominates the first half. The tart grape in the late second act doesn't do this any favours, and the coarse dragging mouthfeel throughout parches the palate; this is the opposite of refreshing.

The mess of flavour has little rhyme or reason to it, and each note seems more shallow than the last. There's a clump of Belgian sugars floating around in there alongside odd hints of old wheat, blackberry, dark malts, and prune. Not a cohesive or well-structured brew, with no subtlety or layering of flavour and lacking intricacy.

The chewy stickiness of the brew is off-putting, lending it a texture on par with a wilted raisin. To be fair, the carbonation is near perfect - one of the few good things I can say about this mess of a beer.

Flavour duration: Average.
Flavour intensity: Average.
Flavour amplitude: Horrid.

Not oily, gushed, hot, boozy, astringent, harsh, rough, or scratchy.

There's no harmony whatsoever of texture to taste, nor is there even a basic agreement of hops and malts. The base is not a accentuated by the barrel. This is just a swing and a miss.

OVERALL: A chaotic nonsensical hodgepodge of random flavours with no regard for style or even basic fundaments of balance, Cosmic Dancer is a failure at both of its intended hybridized styles and will greatly disappoint the discerning drinker. Serendipitiously, it isn't an awful beer - in fact, I'd call it average in spite of its dire imbalance - but I'd caution friends from buying it and frankly I'm not sure it should even have been brought to market. Drinks like a competent homebrewer's failed experiment. The lacking quality of this beer (and the fact that it hit shelves anyway) undermines my formerly high opinion of Kelly Meyer and her basic integrity as a brewer.

The polite way to put it (i.e. the P.R. major way to put it) is that it doesn't fit neatly into style conventions. But even taken in good faith for what it is, it's a profoundly lacking brew. New Braunfels makes some very good beers, but this is far from one of them.

C