Dot Matrix
Double Nickel Brewing Company

 

Double Nickel Brewing Co. "Dot Matrix"
16 fl. oz. can coded "01/22/21-10:39:24" and sampled on 03/29/21
$5.29 @ Total Wine & More, Cherry Hill, NJ

Notes via stream of consciousness: What do we have here? A fruited kettle sour with blackberry and raspberry. Great! It's poured a very hazy deep ruby colored body beneath an average-sized head of pink foam. Unfortunately, as is often the case with sour beers, the head seems to be dropping fairly steadily. The aroma is definitely fruity and berry-like with just a little bit of a mineralish character. It suggests that it'll be a sour beer but I don't think it really will be, and... upon tasting it I find I am correct. It's tart but not too tart, and not what I'd call "sour". It's about as tart-sweet as fresh raspberries are. I get the blackberry upfront, and then the raspberry at the back. It's not very bitter at all but it finishes dry and somewhat acidic with the juicy fruit lingering shortly. It's like alcoholic juice rather than beer with fruit added to it - there's a lot of juice in here! It's very refreshing and would probably make a great beer in the heat of the summer (even if it is 6.5%). In the mouth it's medium bodied with a moderate carbonation that combines with the acidity to leave it crisp. More carbonation might leave it too zesty but then again, maybe not. I feel like I've had this beer before, either from Double Nickel under another name, or just a very similar beer from another brewery - and that's not hard to imagine as it's really a kind of one-trick pony. Nicely done.
Review #7,288

Dark and cloudy violet? That's the best description of the color of a liquid now taking up more than half of the insides of a clear glass liter mug. It arrived via a pour from a pint can of this concoction. The short-lived head was rose and even after it dissipated, there's plenty of carbonation. There is a smell of berries inside the vessel and it's nice. The taste is a berry pleasant one (sorry), not too sweet and not too overbearing. The body is watery and very light on the tongue. That may be better than what the opposite would be. It's refreshing, but really short on the sour. This would go down quickly in the summertime and with its ABV, soon make a consumer very happy. But as a true Kettle Sour, it falls short.