PlanetNINE
Cellador Ales

super unique beer, i havent had anywhere near enough from these guys, but been keen on the ones i have had, and this was a fun one, had no idea it was this strong in alcohol when i was drinking it, its interesting stuff, extremely sour and as such a small doses thing, even before its booze content is factored in, but i really liked it, and think this operation is up to some mighty cool stuff! i used to think all dark sours were accidents, like infected stouts and stuff, and its been a little hard to snap out of that mindset actually, but this isnt all lactic and bacterial, its wild and funky too, very fermentation driven. it looks stout-like in color, darn near fully black, but without a ton of viscosity for what it is, and with quite a bit of head on it, burlap colored and real airy, bottle conditioned apparently, looks nice, lots of shine. i think bourbon barrels can be weird with sour beer, like the flavors are so rich that the acid sometimes is a clash, and that is true in here a little bit, but i think the grain build is nice and alleviates some of that, good complexity, tons of roast, espresso and smoke with the barrel char, the vinous fruitiness is cool too, almost fortified wine in the middle both in aroma and in flavor, and indeed a closer look at the label tells me red wine barrels were involved here in addition to the bourbon (2024 vintage), barrel fermented. raisin without being sweet really, and the vanilla notes of the bourbon and its overall woodiness add a lot, works better than expected, in part due to the length of the aging and in part due to the quality of the bourbon it seems. some middle malt sweetness with light milk chocolate, but this is dry overall. its bottle conditioned with orange blossom honey which is a neat touch, i do get some floral character late, post roast, that brings the funk up a bit too, adds an almost delicate layer, unexpected, and i can taste a bit of honey too, again without this being sweet in any way. i think that the conditioning is excellent and this honey factor is way cool, its subtle, but it does add a neat wrinkle and come through all the dark grain to lighten and uplift this at the end. awesome carbonation. too sour to drink a lot of, its a shame its so acidic, acetic and vinegar-like as it warms, but curious and complex enough to be sort of addicting anyway. weird one, well hidden alcohol, tons of flavor, these guys have my attention for sure!