Onyx Eye
Great Notion Brewing

 

really good stuff, i feel like they have cleaned these up a bit in recent times, although i havent had enough of them to really substantiate that opinion, but i think of kettle sours from these guys as a little sloppy and even overdone, but that is not that case with this one, despite it still being a juice bomb. blackberry, black currant, and elderberry, nice combination of dark fruits in this, lovely deep violet purple color in the glass, clearish from the tap, more refined than anticipated, and fairly frothy and heady, pink toned but settling back fast. the nose on this is amazing, i get the astringent currant and elderberry ahead of more jammy and familiar blackberry, which is way cool, and the lactic front end souring yields no more acidity than the fruit contributes on its own, so its not too sour to drink hard on, not weird in the belly, and there is sort of a sympathetic back and forth between those elements, faint lemon in the sour profile too, fresh and peppy and authentic on the fruit for sure. very little grain in the mix aromatically. the flavor is also delicious, modern and juicy but apparently without things like marshmallow and vanilla which plague the style so much these days, nice! i get the blackberry up front, more powerfully now than in the aroma, and the tarter ones later, hints of tangy plum and red raspberry in this too, a port wine sort of richness and fruit saturation, definitely vinous with the late tang, a faint hint of cinnamon too i swear as it warms. really good proportions and for those who say this is juice not beer, i argue that the grain has a textural impact that keeps this beery, even if the flavor from it is mostly covered up by the fruit, i can dig it. relatively clean ferment, could be slightly lighter and brighter in texture maybe, but this is a little higher abv too, so something to keep in mind. really nice stuff, less sort of novelty than many of their others i have tried in the past. yum!

 

Color is a beautiful reddish purple. Aroma is elderberry and marionberry. It oesn't smell exceptionally sweet, just like natural dark berries. Taste is very much berry, not too tart, more like the style of a juice. Just a slight bitterness and warmth, but this is highly drinkable.