Vintage Stock
Boulevard Brewing Co.

6 oz mini-snifter pour at Lures Bar & Grille. Pours an opaque dark purple, very much like a dark red wine or port. Not much of a head or lacing. Aroma and flavor feature jammy red wine, wine barrel tannins, some roasted malt and dark fruit, and a bit of sour funk. Other than the (light) carbonation, this is by far the most wine-like beer I've ever had. Interesting to try and I'd be curious to drink it thinking it was wine, just to find out what my take would be in that scenario.

750ml bottle, 2020 version best by 1/17/22. Pours dark pinkish purple with a bubbly light pink head that quickly goes to a thin collar that leaves some lacing.

The aroma is vinous grapes with musty earthy notes and a little tartness and cardboard.

The flavor is very tart acidic vinous grapes with some earthiness. The mouthfeel is medium bodied with sharp carbonation.

Overall, interesting but not working for me, kind of like a sour vinegar wine.

 

This was a 2020 release, with best by bottling date of 1/17/22 - from the label, a barrel-aged dark saison co-fermented with Norton grapes - a collaboration with Les Bourgeois Vineyards and sommelier/author Doug Frost... Blends dark, moderately-sour saisons aged in oak foeders, puncheons, and red wine barrels, and finally on Norton grapes...

Very sour and tannic - puckering black currants and berries washed in tart and drying woods - some grape juice and jam are deep in there but the clenching sourness of dark fruit was the dominant experience... Like a wild ale meets a wine - not a typical saison...

Poured from a bomber into a tulip glass. Deep purple color with an effervescent violet initial head, no lacing. Nice smell of dark grapes and tart cherries. Tastes very much like a dark red wine, hints of lemon and black pepper. It went very well with the meatloaf this evening.

really neat stuff here, a wood aged dark saison blend with local red wine grapes, funky and tart but not overly sour, fruit driven but with a pretty complex fermentation profile too, and rather unique overall, nice execution. i think this amount of fruit would be awesome in a more conventional pale saison too, but the dark grains are nice, not quite roasty to me, not bitter or that deep, but some compatible cocoa notes and a nice earthiness to balance some mild residual sweetness from the fruit. this has a cool look to it from the tap, even without much head, dark in the glass but bright purple on the edges, its obvious how packed with the grapes it is, really cool. smells lightly tart and bacterial, woody and tannic, very mature on the yeast side with some bretty funky too, and some mild sharpness there as well, a hint of lemon, dark chocolate from the grain, and port wine density and fruit layering, plum and prune, blackberry and dark cherry along with grape. the flavor has a little purple grape candy thing before the more familiar wine notes set in, sweet through most of this but well balanced both by the earthiness of the grain and the tartness in the ferment, not too much of either, and the alcohol is really well hidden, so sign of it at all, but i do feel this pretty much right away. i think i want a little more wild character to this, i like all the oak and the reserved acidity, but even more funkiness would be cool, especially to help dry out the residual sweetness of the grapes. this definitely has a beer wine hybrid vibe too, and with the dark saison as a base its extremely unique overall. could use a little more carbonation, but i like pretty much everything about this. very cool offering from boulevard here, i was happy to find it on tap!

 

A - Normal pour into a chalice producing a cloudy dark brown/ ruby red/ purple brew sporting a quickly dissipating 1" off white/ reddish tinted head. High carbonation.

S - Grape, cherry, saison funk.

T - Huge sour note. Literally massive. Notes of black cherry, grape, saison funk, lemon, very light malt, honey. This is the closest thing to a wine I've tasted in the beer world. Granted, if it was a wine, it would have more in common with a Sour Black Cherry Warhead candy than a merlot.

M - Thin, dry, crisp, huge bite. Lingering.

D - This is a very unique brew. For the avid purist beer aficionado, this offering might be lost or ignored. With that being said, I think that it is definitely worth a try if for no other reason than to expand horizons. I think we often draw a very distinct line between wine and beer; this brew blurs that line and makes us question the limits of our libation of choice.

Poured from a bottle - looks like a glass of cabernet, purple grape juice with minimal head and zero lacing. Nose is dark fruit with alternating sweet and sour notes. Taste follows with a sour tendency blurring the lines between ale and wine. Finish is a mix of tart/sour on the palate.

 

Blurring the lines that have traditionally separated beer and wine, Boulevard Brewing teams up with Les Bourgeois Vineyards for a Norton grape infused, sour Dark Saison that's helping the two beverages to bridge that dividing gap.

Dark garnet and cast in a fine silt haze, Vintage Stock pours with a billowing froth before carrying a scent of dark vinous fruit, stone fruit, a brisk cidery scent and an earthen perfume of damp cellar-like conditions across the nose before settling on a supple sweetness of hard candy, wafer and a faint toasted sweetness.

As the ale unfolds on the middle palate, its sourness washes away the malt sweetness and doubles down on its brazen acidity. Its those acids that invite the bold tastes of dry cider, red wine, lime, gooseberry, lemon and a nearly acetic spice. Hints of black cherry, plum, blackcurrant and blackberry pull from the Norton grapes before a late palate that's chocked with a light and peppery bitterness of oaken char, weathered wood and musty wine rot.

Medium light for sour ale, the beer's darkened set of complex flavors has the session seeming fuller, but the acids briskly wash away any thirst for a highly varying but dry fruit taste that makes this sour Saison a standout, finishing acutely sour and with a medium length after current of fruit peels, skins and seeds.

 

Bottle:
Note, this comes more as a wild ale than a regular, even dark, saison it's listed as here and on the front label.

The pop of the cork had me fearing a gusher, but it was thankfully not to be. The beer/pseudo-wine hybrid? pours from the bottle in a burgundy stream. The soapy head was a fuschia color and looked to be fighting the flow of liquid that was forcing it higher. After the pour stopped, the bubbles fizzled away to near nothing. Surprisingly a thick collar returns after the beer sits in the glass for a little.

As I poured, I definitely got wine notes, specifically red wine, emanating from the activity. Sniffing now, there's a bit more of the sour aspect, creating a red wine vinegar aspect to the aromas. There's a straight grape juice and a hint of jammy berry as well.

The tang of vinegar joins a grape juice opening, quickly dominating it and attracting almost all of the attention of my palate. There is some influence of the barrels that add light wood notes and subdue the sour notes after they have a little fun. If I let the beer sit a second on the front of my tongue before pushing it back, the wine/grape notes garner a little more influence.

A nice, fairly soft carbonation is nice, since the sour flavors add some bite to the feel. A fairly clean finish with just a little tang lingering into the aftertaste.

A little more sour than I was expecting for the "dark saison" front label and even so for the "moderately sour" description on the back. It's not quite puckering, and while this sour was pretty decent, I think I would've been more interested in a regular (non-sour) saison mixed with the Norton grapes/wine.

Opens with a thunderous pop, maybe I needed safety glasses?

Pours mahogany with purple edges, the rapidly falling purplely pink head. This beer is kind of perculating, wild... Zero head retention & lacing

S: Red grape juice & a little barnyard

T: Tart red grapes with lemon tartness as well up front. Dryness, puckery grape & lemon tartness once warm. Finishes bone dry with some leafy hope, red grape & tartness, plus some acidity

MF: Medium body, fairly lively carbonation, some acidic layers as well

Decent for what is, but after awhile the dryness was tiresome for me, alcohol is well hidden. The little funkyness that presented up front went AWOL once warm

L: Poured from a bottle to a snifter glass. Had a dark purple color and a thick, opaque consistency. There was an inch of foamy / fizzy, off white head that lasted an average amount of time. Not a whole lot of lacing.

S: An interesting aroma of a vinous quality, malt, citrus fruit, and a funky, yeasty quality.

T: Tasted of a small amount of malt (mostly in the finish, but it's overpowered by the other ingredients), some of typical yeasty funk (less than expected), a ton of the vinous quality (red wine, to be specific), and mild citrus notes (lemon). This is a lively, slightly unusual, and interesting flavor. Pretty tasty.

F: A well-carbonated beer with a sharp finish. Medium-bodied.

O: An offbeat, but likable saison. Drinkable.

 

750ml bottle. Poured out a dark, purple color (almost black) with a small, khaki-colored head of foam. It smelled of grapes, tart lemon and toffee. Sour grape taste with toffee and maltiness.