Cherry Sour
Red Collar Brewing Co.

Murky pink-peach color. Poured a medium sized pink head that collapsed to larger bubbles and then a patchy skiff within a minute. Too murky to see the carbonation level. Left no lacing.

A pleasant buttery smell quickly disappeared to leave behind strong cherry and raw pie dough malt smells. There is also a light berry smell blended with the cherry. Swirling the glass kicked up a light barnyard for a few seconds which gave way to the original cherry, berry, and pie dough malt.

Tart with a mix of funk. Very light cherry and mixed berry flavor. Mild-medium bitters that could be from hops or from some of the fruit. Light malt flavor. The aftertaste starts as a light tart that grows towards sour. Bitters are stronger. The berry/cherry is very light.

Light carbonation. It hardly foams. Medium body. Somewhat astringent. There was a light stickiness on my tongue and teeth.

The cherry smell and flavor is not as distinct as Belgian cherry lambics, but the overall flavor is more like a sour lambic. Seems like a well balanced blend of the two styles with some added bitters. The initial butter smell never showed up again. It may have been some odd association between the pie crust malt and the light barnyard in the first seconds after pouring. Very nice beer. It is too bad that it has such a small release. The brewery has announced that they are out of stock just as I found it in our local liquor store.

 

 

 

650ml bottle - a kettle sour release, fermented on tart red cherries.

This beer pours a very pale, salmon-tinged golden yellow colour, with three fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and mildly bubbly faintly pink head, which leaves a bit of bleeding paint swath lace around the glass as it quickly dissipates.

It smells of musty dark cherry flesh, some muddled lactic sourness, unlit matchsticks, earthy yeast, a weak grainy pale maltiness, and ethereal weedy and floral hop bitters. The taste is bready and lightly crackery pale malt, cherry-flavoured yogurt, a twinge of balsamic vinegar, further indistinct dark orchard fruity notes, a kind of metallic minerality, and more unheralded leafy, weedy, and gently perfumed floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly encompassing in its sturdy frothiness, the body a solid medium weight, and mostly smooth, none of the souring agents here (lactic and fruity) really caring to make an oafish ass of themselves, apparently. It finishes off-dry, the mixed berry fruitiness and base malt starting to reel in the overall tartness level.

Well, I gotta say, this is one enjoyable and refreshing sour fruit ale, as the most relevant thing I can think of to describe it in summation, is well-balanced. Yeah, the fruit, malt, lactic sourness, and hops all work pretty much seamlessly together, under the essentially invisible yoke of the 7-pointer alcohol. Good, good stuff.

 

Gold with a pink haze, nice head, shows some lace.

Not a huge aroma, hints of tart cherry and a little sulfur.

Taste is more tart than sour. The sulfur comes through in the flavour as well (Pils malt).

Light to moderate body is smooth, with a crisp finish.

A nice summer sipper.