Kettle Sour #3
Blindman Brewing

Loving this new dry-hopped sour trend. Blindman nails it with their Kettle Sour #3 with great flavours of fresh hops, piney resin, grapefruit and a nice lemon tartness. Super refreshing! Mouthfeels a little watery, though.

Really disappointed in this one since I enjoyed #1 and #2 quite a bit. I've never had a beer smell as savoury as this; garlic, cooked onion, chive, sage-like aromas dominated the nose, there may have been some light fruit notes underneath it but I didn't want to dig my nose in any further to try and find them. Taste was definitely better but still had those off-putting flavours and I just couldn't get over the smell while drinking. A rarity for me but I simply couldn't finish this beer.

I should mention that I actually do like those dank/savoury Summit/Simcoe flavours you'll occasional see make their way into IPAs, but this was so far beyond that, it was ridiculous. I'm wondering if I just caught a bad batch or even can but this was truly like no off-flavour I've tasted before.

 

Have been a huge fan of this series of kettle sours so I was very excited to grab a flat of #3.
Unfortunately this is definitely the worst of the bunch - the combination of hops is very skunky on the nose. Improves a little when it warms up but the aroma kills this experience for me.

 

Another tremendous take on the sour. In Alberta, I really think these guys have the market cornered on the style. It is tart, but oh so refreshing. This variety simply builds on an already good thing - tart, fruity, and damn tasty.

1L howler from Sherbrooke Liquor Store - all right, they've gone full experimental this time (I'll miss you, Mosaic!), employing the hop varieties #06277 and #07270 - oh, how sexy.

This beer pours a hazy, pale yellow straw colour, with three fingers of puffy, tightly foamy, and bubbly bone-white head, which leaves some random splattered and sudsy lace around the glass as it evenly subsides.

It smells of musty and gritty wheat malt, gently soured milk, a further biscuity graininess, muddled light orchard stone fruit, a touch of acrid yeast, and some weirdly indistinct green hop bitters. The taste is quite consistent with the aroma - grainy pale and wheat malt, a satisfying milky and creamy tartness (yeah, I don't know either), still hard to pinpoint pome and citrus fruity notes, a waning sense of wayward yeastiness, and more plain earthy, leafy, and herbal hoppiness.

The bubbles are fairly understated in their plain and subservient frothiness, the body a so-so medium weight, and surprisingly smooth for any sort of sour offering - it just is, no further questions will be entertained. It finishes off-dry, in a simple tart, fruity, sort of milky, and grainy manner.

Once again, this Kettle Sour thing pulls a fast one on me, and comes across as deceptively easy to drink, and refreshing, even. The unnamed guest hops here appear to be of the robustly fruity sort, which works well with the inherent (or adjunct, depends on your point of view, eh?) dairy tartness. Good, good stuff.