WTF Blood Orange Sour
Situation Brewing

1L howler from Sherbrooke Liquor store (thanks again to Smilin' Jay, he of the cool-cat label inscriptions), and the latest in this brewpub's WTF (What the Fermentation?) experimental sour series.

This beer pours a hazy, medium apricot amber colour, with two fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and bubbly off-white head, which leaves zilch in the way of lace anywhere near the glass as it quickly blows off.

It smells of juicy and tart orange juice, soured grains, spoiled milk, white saltine crackers, and very little else. The taste is bready and crackery pale malt, a bit of baking yeast, muddled tart citrus notes (could be orange, but also lemon and/or lime), some fading creamy dairy sourness, saline solution, and a very ethereal earthy and leafy noble hop bitterness.

The carbonation is fairly active in its palate-probing frothiness, the body a decent middleweight for the style, and more or less smooth, as the tart and sour metrics here are strictly for show, it would seem. It finishes off-dry, the sturdy malt, wan Gose nods, and surprisingly solid citrus character making a day of it.

Overall, this is a pleasant enough gateway sour brew, the fruity component always right there to coddle one's perhaps unwilling tastebuds. Easy to drink (except for the strangely high local beer pricing, which is always hard to swallow), and worth checking out if your sour card hasn't been punched in a while. Or something, something.