Cerezita
Casa Agria Specialty Ales

 

Pour cherry red with white hazing here and there. Oh buddy you can smell the brett on this one, with cherry, grape, wood, wine, yeast and flowers. Taste again has a lot of brett, but settles more as the beer warms. The cherry and vinous elements settle into the yeast and wood well. Grassy, floral, and spring like all around in the finish, some tartness but not puckering by any means. Feel is a little grainy for a grisette, and the brett is felt most here. The idea of this beer was cool, and it has some really nice aspects, but needs some fine tuning as a whole

Tasted in a tumbler from draft at Mikerphone Brewery on December 21, 2018. Cerezita starts as a barrel aged Grisette inspired table beer. After several months aging it is then aged on tart cherries and pinot noir grape skins before naturally conditioning in the bottle.

An interesting innovation.
A subset of saisons, grisettes (labelled so by the brewer) were the speciality that made Hainut miners feel good about themselves and go back to work the next day. (Saisons were the thirst-quencher of that same province's farmers.) Of the 5 grisettes I think I may have had, only one had a fruit juice in it; possibly it was like the cherries in this one. Different.

Cerezita Looks inviting to start (generous foam), but I just get left with this pink drink. Smells have more staying power (malt and cherries), but not the melange of fruits I associate with saisons. Tastes are distinct: the tart is not too tart (and I prefer not too tart). Feel is not too much like beer and more like cherry-grape juice.

But I feel obligated to express my discomfort paying $18 for a magnum. I recognize that cherries and pinot noir grapeskins require additional effort and time to age. But before I have Cerezita a second time, I think I will just have one of my favorite saisons at one-tenth the price.

My first from Casa Agria, I just went on their website and saw why this bottle costs $18. Very thoughtful and specialized methods to integrate Ventura County's terroir into ale and ale into the kitchen.