Orange Creamsicle
Barbarian Brewing

Taster at Bittercreek. Cloudy, light amber, flat. Aroma is a small hit of orange peel, and the taste adds the vanilla. The overall vibe is a Creamsicle, although a little tart.

 

an incredibly interesting beer, and it is what it says it is, smells and tastes just like the real treat, pretty impressive. another one of those beer ideas that sounds sort of weird as a sour, but when you taste it, it all makes sense. this is pretty wild stuff, a strong berliner type as a base, and yeah there is a little wheat character and even a little german essence running through it, but this is decidedly new school. the orange and vanilla are equally bold to my senses, they play well together on more levels than just flavor through. the vanilla runs a little sweet but the orange has some bitterness to balance it, the vanilla with the grain and the lactose comes across as sort of creamy and thick but there is some acidity from the citrus that cuts it back into a drinkable realm, its neat how cohesive and complementary they are. the vanilla is righteously natural and makes this feel fancy, and the orange is nuanced and intense through the whole thing, essential oily and pungent, love that. im not sure the base beer would be amazing on its own, but its well built for these flavors, big enough to handle them and still taste like beer. the sourness is clean enough, not too acidic, and balances the milk sugar, which as always for my palate is a little more robustly dosed than it needs to be. still, this is a really fun summer drink, a modern and creative sour using real ingredients, definitely a hit with most in our group. this should be a lesson to shades, who does a lot of crazy dessert sours, this sort of thing doesnt have to be expertly refined, but it doesnt need to have chunks in it and a gelatinous texture to taste like the target either, this is a whole step closer to being good quality beer than a lot of theirs are, not perfect, but a lot more drinkable, and the flavor is fully there. the beer list here is always just insane!