Salal Sour
Yachats Brewing

Another beer consumed at the Firestone Walker Festival Pre Party 2017.

Pours reddish brown. Looks more like a flanders red ale than it does a berliner weisse. Smallish beige 1/5" head. Haven't had Salal berries, seems like a more exotic name for cranberries. This smelled a little bit like a ripe baby was given a lot of berries.

Taste, I dunno, just starts right out similar to those "sour" beers that use cranberry, that is what it tastes like, with a hint of cherry underneath it. Sourness is mild for any style of beer, wild, gose, berliner, whatever. That's fine. Had some of that acetic acid more indicative of a flanders as well, not to mention the darker malt bill. id' be inclined to call it bitter just as much as tart. I have my doubts there is any wheat in this beer. I prolly rated the taste higher just because of the unique fruit addition.

Once you parse through the "Cascadian" fan boy homer takes, you'll see this is a cranberry-esque beer with plenty of vinegar and poopy notes. Salal and thanks for the shoes.

This review is from a bottle aged a year (Jan. 2017)

Poured into a white wine glass, energetic and ephemeral crisp white head over light ruby brilliant clarity almost resembles a Rosé

Smell is incredible, the effervescent carbonation and earthy sweetness of the salal is reminiscent of the Oregon coast on a warm late spring day, the mix of crashing crisp surf and buding foliage.

English Current berry hits first, Darker rainier cherry note comes second accompanied by a light and crisp body. The previous reviewer knocked this as “not sour enough” possibly expecting a Berliner Weisse, which this is not. This is a complex but crisp wild sour. This isn’t a mother pucker. Yachats prides itself on integrating open fermentation and wild local yeasts. Capturing both the unique soft almost creamy sweetness and subtle bitter bite of Salal Berries as well as the essence of the Oregon Coast, there are elemets of a kriek, but it is artfully restrained like a change up pitch that fizzes in fast but finishes with a finessed flavor.

With a bit of age like this particular bottle, you can appreciate the unique aspects of the Salal, even get light floral notes on the nose and in the aftertaste that are supported by a nearly invisible hop profile. This is a very unique and truly Cascadian beer. It’s not only a novel masterpiece but a beer I’d love to enjoy on any given day at anytime from brunch to lunch to end of the night aperitif (which Salal berries are well suited for their natural appetite suppressant properties)

Pay them a visit and enjoy some very special beer.

An interesting combination, but too much sweet over the sour.