Rei Boysenberry Sour
Fuggles Beer

Hazy red color. Poured a very short pink head that collapsed to a patchy skiff within seconds. Medium flow of mixed size bubbles rising from the bottom of the glass. Left no lacing.

Strong funk smell that was similar to a dilute apple cider vinegar. Light malt. Faint celery stalk or celery seeds. Swirling the glass kicked up a light barnyard for a couple of seconds. There was a much stronger malt and just a hint of some berry. The celery seeds were also a bit stronger.

Strong funk flavor with just a hint of some fermented fruit; could be a light apple cider vinegar like the original smell, or maybe an overcooked rhubarb. A mix of mild tart and sweet. An unidentified berry showed up as it warmed in my mouth. Some tea. This tasted more like some kombucha teas I have tried. The aftertaste had a very strong berry followed up by an equally strong malt. The malt hung around for a long time. There was a slight bitter that faded in.

Fizzy, with some tongue tingling. Quickly grew to a very large bubbled foam. A bit oily. A bit astringent.

The smell and taste were both interesting, but did not really seem much like a beer. I think I could pour this off into an empty kombucha bottle and fool friends that are long time kombucha drinkers. I greatly prefer most of the other fruit sours put out by F&W. A definite boysenberry flavor didn't show up. Instead I found fermented apple vinegar, scorched rhubarb, and just a bit of something that could be a berry. I'm glad I have a Sakari Guava Sour waiting in the fridge.

ETA: I'm drinking the Sakari the day after I added this review, and the Sakari is equivalent to what I had posted in it's own review. I had considered that the Rei might have been improperly stored, since these F&W fruit sours don't survive summer warehouse temperatures. However the Sakari was on the beer cooler shelf right next to the Rei, and the Sakari has an older time stamp on the label. I don't think this review was affected by poor storage, so I'm not going to change it.

Fuggles & Warlock Craftworks 'Rei' Boysenberry Sour @ 6.5% , served from a 650 ml bottle
A-pour is a funky pink from the bottle to a fuschia in the glass with light pink head leaving a minimal lace ring along the tulip
S-boysenberry
T-tart & refreshing , boysenberry
MF-ok/mild carbonation , medium body
Ov-still no wow factor
prost LampertLand

 

Appearance is a beautiful reddish pink, with lots of bubbles, and a foamy head that disappears quickly. The smell and taste are fruity (boysenberries, natch), and lightly tart. This isn't a sour that will make you really pucker up, unless you're averse to the whole genre. The beer is dry, not sweet, or I guess there is a bit of sweetness from the fruit, but it doesn't appear to be sugary at all. It's not as interesting as the better wild ales, with their multiplicity of flavors, but it hits the dry lightly tart boysenberry target quite nicely.

 

 

 

650ml bottle - bring on more sours, I suppose, even though my stomach will probably revolt.

This beer pours a murky, dark pink-tinged magenta hue, with two fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and fizzy pale pink head, which leaves a low-lying berm of surface-hugging lace around the glass as it quickly subsides.

It smells of somewhat acrid black fruit (so, boysenberry, I presume?), generic fruity yogurt, a touch of funky yeastiness, gritty and grainy pale malt, and a subtle hint of leafy, weedy, and floral green hop bitters. The taste is sour dark fruit (cherries, plums, and sure, boysenberries), a sour earthy milkiness, grainy and bready pale malt, a pleasantly lessened plain funkiness, and more tame leafy, earthy, and gently perfumed floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly robust in its poking and prodding frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and mostly smooth, but for a suggestion of 'sour' black fruitiness obviously traipsing all over the petunias here, as such. It finishes trending dry, the acerbic dark berry essence lingering like the guest boss that it wants to be.

Overall, this is one of the better fruit-forward sours that I have recently come across - the boysenberries really doing a number in terms of keeping things on the level here. I've had my veritable fill of unhinged sours of late, so it's nice to see something like this, which reminds me more of picking fruit in summertime while growing up in southern Alberta.

A: Beautiful raspberry red/pink with a finger of pale pink head.
S: A hint of sweet berries, a bit of funk.
T: Sour, tart and then sweet. I'm not sure what boysenberries are like, but given how tart raspberries are, I didn't expect this much sweetness. Nice balance of sour and sweet.
F: Thin to medium bodied.

Bottle: Poured a deep bright reddish color ale with a medium size foamy head with OIK retention and some light lacing. Aroma of tart notes with light funky notes and huge flavours of boysenberry is quite a treat. Taste is a great mix between some light funky notes with plenty of boysenberry notes, light acidic notes with light residual sugar notes. Body is full with good carbonation. Not totally well-balanced but still quite enjoyable tart fruit beer.