Altra Volta: Pineau
Fox Farm Brewery

500 ml bottle split with a friend, poured into a red wine glass. Pours a mostly clear light yellow color with a moderately-sized off-white head. Aroma and flavor feature leather, moderate barnyard funk, moderate acidity, bright fruit flavors of melon and passionfruit, and a surprising amount of sweetness - probably from the barrels? Not cloying at all, it's just that I was expecting a fairly dry beer, and this was more like semi-dry (in Riesling terms). Mouthfeel is not quite puckering, not very astringent either. Overall it's quite delicious but the sweetness did detract a bit for me.

This one pours a light pinkish color, with a small head, and lots of lacing.

This smells oaky, with peach and nectarine, white grape, and white wine.

The spontaneous beers from Fox Farm continue to just be dynamite. It’s lightly tart, not overwhelming, and really oaky and barrel forward. There’s some obvious grape notes, but it feels more softly stone fruit like to me, personally.

This is light bodied, crisp, and clean, and with a nicely quenching acidity.

Fox Farm quietly makes some of the best wild ales in the country, and barely anybody would even know about it.

Bottle from the brewery in Salem, CT. Pours a translucent very light amber gold with a finger of creamy white head that lingers, nice lacing; smell is funky and bitter cider, grass, white grape must, dry white wine, sour peach candy, hints of lychee and lemon; taste follows with green apple slices, white grape flesh and skin, musty dry white wine, sour peach candy that lingers, hint of hay, mild grass on the finish; feel is light and bright, high acidity. Funky white sangria and sour peach candy goodness.

 

Cork and capped bottle served in a tulip. Pours a lovely honey-orange hue with a loose, 1//8th inch had that quickly disperses towards the shoulders into a tight band. Clarity has a slight haze. Nose expresses citrus acid with notes of wood and apricots. Taste follows nose - notes of white oak are revealed and apricot character is more intensified in the flavor profile. Mouthfeel is light in body with a bright carbonation and an assertive acidity. Overall, a lovely wild with quite a bit of complexity.

 

 

 

Hitting a long neglected mystery beer now that I'm finally back at home from a weekend at my folks' place, a three hour drive home, and then a ten hour shift where temperatures went from around freezing to our current 12°.

Serving was a roughly 16oz bottle with a cork hidden under a bottle cap:

Poured into a Precious Things teku, this was a cloudy apricot amber color, with a good sized sudsy off-white head that dropped within a couple minutes to a thin ring. I'm thinking a FF sour like the other mystery beer.

That impression was confirmed by the tired and cold workers at my olfactory. But what kind of sour? I get peaches and lychee in the nose, along with a bretty funk.

Taste goes with the impression I got from the nose. This is seeming like some sort of fruited wild ale.

Fairly light and crisp mouth feel.

Kinda reminds me of a Gewurtstraminer, at least a little. I wouldn't be surprised to find out it's something that was wine barrel aged.

And the reveal...


I'm guessing that no fruit was used, as none is mentioned. I must have picked up on the flavor left in the barrels from the wine and imagined it was from fruit, which I suppose it was, just not in the way I thought. Delicious as a nightcap on this bitterly cold night.

Incidentally, like he did with his other mystery beer to me, [USER=725518]@Roguer[/USER] hand drew a beer-centric mockery of a Porcupine Tree album cover, in this case Fear of a Blank Planet.

Thanks, Andrew!

Fairly neutrally sour and potently funky wild ale. Notes of peach, ruby red grapefruit, straw, hay, earth, wheat, vinegar, tannins, oak, and wildflower honey.