Fruit Stand - Cherry (Sweet Blend)
Casey Brewing & Blending and Barrel Cellar

 

I had this beer on tap at a GABF party. The look, smell and feel are all clearly those of an impeccably made beer. If hitting those marks are important to you, you will like all Casey beers! The balance between fruit and sour is very nice and especially matches the cherry in this beer. Cherry too sweet tastes like cough medicine or artificially sweetened candy. This definitely tastes made with fruit stand cherries: not a sweet treat, not overly soured beer and not aged to great abv heights. It makes something hard look very easy. Tasty and measured in the best way.

BOTTLE: 750ml format. Bottled 3/3/17 per a white sticker on the bottle. Purchased at Casey Brewing about a year ago. Hood and wire cage covers the cork. Green artful label.

"Ale aged in oak barrels with cherries." 5.5% ABV.

Served chilled into a teku and allowed to come to temperature over the course of consumption. Its audible pop upon opening indicates apt carbonation.

HEAD: ~5cm in height. Pink. Could be fuller and thicker, but it's healthy, lasting a good ~4 minutes. Leaves no lacing as it recedes. Not real creamy or frothy.

BODY: Pale red of decent vibrance. No yeast/lees are visible in the body after the first pour from the bottle, but it's too opaque to really ascertain.

Seems aptly carbonated...less so than most beers but seemingly right for a bottle conditioned ale.

AROMA: Powdery sugary sweetness. Powdered sugar coated cherries come to mind. Slightly jammy very sticky cherry aromatics. Mild tartness. Obvious lactobacillus sourness (~5-6/10 in terms of intensity), but I think I find some pediobacter as well. No brettanomyces funkiness, barnyard notes, or hay.

Cherry is a tricky flavour - get it wrong and it you've got a medicinal beer. Get it right and it still might ring artificial. This suggests authentic cherry, and it's lovely.

No overt oak here.

I'd guess at a pale malt and wheat malt backbone, but the neutral malt base bends to the whims of the cherries and bacteria. Hints of possible microflora. No overt hoppy notes are detectable (I'd bet aged hops were utilized).

I detect no off notes save for a possible blip of butyric acid on the back end.

TASTE & TEXTURE: Authentic cherry notes are definitely present, and true to Casey's label it's on the sweeter end for cherries, eschewing the usual tartness. Acidity is high but not intolerable.

Lactobacillus and pediobacter impart bacterial complexity into this tasty sour ale, with any brettanomyces bruxellensis and/or oak notes taking a definite backseat. Malt backbone seems neutral (probably pale malt/2-row and wheat). There are no overt hop flavours or off-flavours.

Slightly jammy. Has a sticky yet powdery feel on the palate. Soft yet well-carbonated. Smooth and wet yet somewhat viscous. Not quite chewy or smacky enough to really bring out the tartness of the cherries, but the sourness certainly helps; this is about a 6/10 in terms of sourness.

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

OVERALL: It's a solid Kriek-redolent sour cherry ale, but there is room for improvement. I do think more tart sour cherries work better than sweet, and this lacks the delicate harmony and bacterial/microfloral intricacy of, say, the best Belgian Krieks. It tasty jammy fare, but I wouldn't count it amongst the best beers in Casey's repertoire (which is rife with more effective cherry ales). I'll enjoy savoring the bottle, but I wouldn't pay Casey's often exorbitant prices for more of this.

Oak isn't a flaw in my view, and I wouldn't mind seeing Casey commit more to it to tie their beers together. A bit less sourness might let the cherries shine more.

High B- (3.50) / WORTHY