Night Market
Urban Artifact

 

 

Midwest Fruit Tart brewed with mangosteen and bananas. Poured from a can into an Urban Artifact Thoroughbred glass. For a Midwest Fruit Tart from Urban Artifact, this beer is shockingly clear. The color is pale gold and it has a thin whisper of foam on top with low retention (typical for a sour beer, though some of their beers have amazing crowns of foam - no doubt due to theh copious amounts of fruit used). I am totally unfamiliar with mangosteen, but this beer has a mild fruity aroma that is a little like apple cider with hints of pear. The banana comes through as well as the sharp acidity of the beer.

Medium-light body with a silky feel and a tart flavor. The fruit flavor is definitey there, but since it's a fruit I'm unfamiliar with it's hard to put my finger on exactly what it tastes like. It makes me think of apple juice with grapefruit and a bit of over-ripe pear. All of this is offset by the sour taste of the beer. The sweetness of the fruit flavors mingle playfully with the sour notes of the beer, but in the end the sour flavors win out and the beer dries out on the finish, leaving lingering flavors of lemon and white wine. Overall, not my favorite from this brewer. I am happy that they keep trying new fruits, but for me this one is more about contrast between sour beer and sweet fruit where their very best beers are about citrusy fruit flavors that are enhanced and intensified by sour beer. Recommended for devout fans of this brewery, but not something that is likely to turn someone into a big fan.

L: Pale milky pineapple juice with a one finger fizzy head fading down to a ring on the glass in a flash.

S: A fruity sweet & sour sauce.

T: Follows the nose with the additions of some margarita salt and a touch of sweaty lager aftertaste.
ABV is surprisingly well hidden.

F; Stinging carbonation on a watered down juice beverage.

O: A dangerous quick drinker but mediocre in my opinion.

 

Appearance is fully opaque yellow-tan with almost no head but for a bubbly clear film dying instantly, leaving relatively minimal translucent pulp sticking to the glass, at least compared to their other Slushys, I mean...Midwest Tart ales. The heavy fruit, as noted on the can, settles out in an unusually beautiful soundwave sort of pattern in this one.

Banana is outrageously expressive, and the explosively tart mangosteen amps up both the banana and the beer overall in a very unique way. The body is moderately thick, cut by a sharply fine carbonation before coming to a semi-dry finish that's vibrantly herbal and citrusy. A semi-bitter mango skin bite comes out on the swallow.

This is surprisingly clear for all of the fruit added. It almost looks like it could be an unfiltered lager. Light golden in color with no crown.

The nose brings banana rings and laffy taffy and another, pulpy type of fruit.

The taste comes in with banana as well. Laffy taffy, but could use a little more sweetness for me.

Nice tartness throughout with banana lingering. Very little alcohol presence for 9.5%. It would be almost undetectable except for bringing a kind of stinging sharpness.

I think they did good on what they were going for here other than the fruit tart part. This is the first of the series I didn’t get any bread/crust notes. And even though I like banana, this just didn’t fully appeal to me. Maybe it’s the mangosteen, which I’ve never had, or maybe it’s the banana mixing with alcohol.