Tones
Suarez Family Brewery

 

This is the best fruit beer, period, no question. The craftsman ship of Suarez is unbelievable. The color is so bright, almost a lambic look. It is also one of the few fruit beers that you can genuinely taste the fruit.

This one pours a vivid pink-ish/purple color, with a touch of haze, a small head, and lots of lacing.

This smells like red wine, blueberry jam, plum, and some floral funk.

This is absolutely near the top of the Suarez country fruit beers. It's not quite up to the highest level Summer Whoas (White Lady in particular) but definitely beats every Merkel that I've had. The blueberry comes up as slightly jammy, but also some funky skins come through, along with red wine, light acidity, and a soft tea-like floral funk.

This is light bodied, clean, and spritzy, with a wonderful drinkability.

I wish I had more than one bottle of this little treat. It's really quite wonderful.

 

Huge thanks to Jimmy for this one. The crown jewel of an awesome Suarez box. Thank you.

500ml capped bottle - hand dated 9/'19 - poured into a large red wine stem at 48°F.

Pours a brilliant clear deep pomegranate red, looking like sparking grape juice in the glass. A finger of loose, fizzy, pink head loudly and quickly sizzles out, leaving a lively sparkling top. Plenty of visible effervescence. Stunning.

Nose: I can smell this from a few feet away. The aroma oa absolutely unreal. Tons of ultra jammy blueberry. Blueberry pie filling, blueberry syrup, blueberry jam, blueberry wine, blueberry ice cream. So much blueberry. There is a serious depth of complexity to this, with some real wild and farmy notes in the background. Very forward notes of leather, vanilla bean, lemon, plum, wet flint, tons of minerality, wet oak, dusty attic, hay, barnyard, and some very goozie funk, with a little bit of that bandaid note. There seems to be some acidity, but it's so restrained, I cannot yet tell if this is going to be a "sour beer". It could go either way. The funk is restrained, but it's certainly there, and this aroma is just so potent and complex, it's almost overwhelming in the best way possible.

Palate: For such an explosive aroma, the beer actually greets the palate in the most delicate fashion. Before anything else, it opens up with pure minerality. Think sparking mineral water, and then up the mineral percentage by 1000%. Then, this beautifully restrained tartness comes in - not sour, puckering, or acetic, but a wonderful little zing, like unripe grapes. The blueberry component is bone dry, and nowhere near as jammy as the aroma led on. It's very clear that this was rested atop whole berries, not macerated ones. At this point, it has a true wine-like quality to it. The malt base is nearly nonexistent, and while I can taste a faint whisper of wheat, this could basically be lacking malt entirely. There is a gentle note of oak in the background, but it's subtle, and doesn't contribute any real vanilla or wood flavours. Tons of wet stone, vitamin C tablets (citric acid), and again, more minerality. In the finish, the blueberry essence fades, and reveals the most subtle grassy note, and a fleeting whisper of bitterness, which I'm not sure is hops or oak, but the subtle grassy note makes me think hops. The finish itself is bone dry, with lots of minerality, a hint of funk, and that gueuze-like bandaid note is just barely detectable in the background. Finishes entirely clean.

Mouthfeel/Body: This beer is incredibly light on its toes, delicate, and bright. As I stated in terms of flavour, there's no discernible malt base, so naturally, it's very light, dare I say even a touch watery. However, given the nature of the beer - the ultra fine, lively effervescence, the incredible attenuation, the gentle acidity and prominent minerality - all in all, it basically has the body and feel of champagne. This is the closest you'll get.

Overall: This is truly a unique beer. I'm not even sure what I would categorise this as. It's not a saison, it doesn't seem jammy enough to be a fruit beer, and wild ale is a far cry too, though given the yeast profile, I'd feel most comfortable calling this a wild ale. That doesn't matter. What matters is this is like nothing I've ever tried. An aroma to die for, bone dry blueberry essence, gentle funk, tons of minerality, a touch of oak, and a champagne body - all come together to create a beer that you couldn't possibly correctly imagine until tasting it. Definitely one for the books. If I could get this again, I very much would.

 

 

 

blueberry jam, lemon rind, wheat, mellow spice invoking a delicious blueberry pie, hint of vanilla, musty berry skin. honestly not a ton of funky character to it, just some earthyness invoking that rustic touch.