Once Upon An Orchard - Pawpaw
Allagash Brewing Company

375ml corked and cage bottle served in my Allagash tulip. Pours a dull orange hue with a slight haze to the clarity. A bright white, quarter inch head quickly dissipates towards the edges. Nose is quietly lovely - wild yeast, citrus, and perhaps a kiss of banana. Taste is somewhat consistent with nose; however, banana is replaced by melon. Mouthfeel is light and bright with an assertive acidity and a puckering astringency. Overall, a very nice American Wild, but the Pawpaw fruit is very much masked.

Nov 2024
Pours a fluffy light 1/2 finger head with fair retention a bit of lacing, mostly clear light pale color

Nose has some tart funk but not much, more like kettle sour lacto, fruity mix like sweetened dried fruits or skittles even, a bit citrus lemon-lime and maybe cactus fruit,

Taste starts fairly tart, more lacto like creamy souring character, again lots of various fruits but more citrus side, lemon-lime, prickly pear, a little tropical note with pineapple sourness, little golden sweet malt, creamy lacto yogurt, semi dry slight flemmy finish

Mouth is med bod, high effervescent and slight prickly carb, moderate acidity

Overall not bad, a fun interesting beer, not one I would drink much of, but unique

looks like a wicked cool series, this is my first beer from it, real interesting stuff, sourer than anticipated but distinctive too, raw in an appealing way, juicy and tart and curious, always wish i had better access to allagash beers, this is unlike any ive had from them, from the bottle, cool packaging, hazy starchy whitewashed looking brew with some body and some rawness about it, bubble to drink but not a lot of head holding here. the nose is very acidic with sharp white wine and lemony lacto all over it, but also some cool tang from the fruit itself, a light wild type funk. and some light woodiness, lemongrass and a lush herbal profile from the pawpaw, guava or papaya maybe, more sour than fruity, but unique too. the flavor follows, wheaty and earthy on the grain side, some unmalted wheat likely, with a subtle spiciness in there somewhere and lots of soft body for something this sharp, a needed contract to the pucker. lemon and soursop, green papaya and tart green gooseberry, drying to the point of being tannic and kind of pithy, but there is a juicy wetness to it as well, texturally quite dynamic, more funky as it warms but still too sour to drink a lot of, better carbonation than it shows, and on the whole a really intriguing beer, i think a decent expression of this fruit, but i am no master of it, and its cool to experience it in a beer like this regardless of fruit intensity, it makes it original. definitely unexpected and weird in a good way, maybe not recommended for long cellaring lest the sourness run further away with it, not hurting for maturity now in my opinion...