Local Sour
Southern Tier Brewing Company

 

 

 

 

Prevalent sour taste, smooth finish

 

 

This brew was served from a growler filled off the tap line at One Stop Brew Shop in Rochester, New York. It appeared a shimmering, coppery yellow coloring, and sported a half finger tall head of fizzy white foam. This retained decently before dripping down into wet lines of lacing around our glasses. A brief, chill haze was noted, but no sediment was found to accompany this. Carbonation appeared to be robust. The nose was somewhat reserved and mild, giving notes of simple two-row graininess, millet seed, adjuncty white rice, bitter green grape skins, and toasty pale wheatiness. Temperature brought out more robust hints of sourdough bread, tinny metallics, raw leeks, soft lacto and Bretty puck, and light lemon tea. The taste gave wheat and pale malt toastiness, synthetic lemon cleaner, gentle grassy and lightly citric hoppiness, salted post-cooking pasta water, white chalked drying sourness, stale lacto milkiness, white rice adjunct, warm cashew butter, faintly toasted marshmallows, and light plastic phenols. The body was somewhat light, and the carbonation remained high throughout. Each sip gave frothy slurp and smack, but without the creamy mustache. Finishing pop was reasonably crisp. The mouth was left coated in a fine milky astringency, with finite, crinkling pucker to the top layer of the mouth’s mucosa. The abv was appropriate, and drinkability was fair.

Overall, this was a surprisingly different beer when you compare it from fridge to room temperatures. When cold, the nose is rather dull, and beer drinks and flows quite nicely. As it warms, however, your get introduced to an entirely different beast. Time slows down a bit, and the subtleties and complexities of the pale, wheaty base thicken and come forth. The interplay between this “muck” and the yeast profile is interesting, coming together for a product that is ultimately sticky, hot, and tangy, like something alien you would find deep in a cave. This final product actually reminded us more of a gose-type profile, with both bright and heavy lactic presence and a certain earthy saltiness to finish things off.

 

Not bad but not very sour at all

 

 

Southern tier does it again. I was lucky enough to be the first ever public tap. They added a pinch of cherry syrup. I was happily surprised, and found the first great sour. Bought two growlers of this limited brew.