Head Ancho
Lead Dog Brewing

really weird beer, one of the more ambitious we had from them, but also definitely my least favorite, ancho paloma sour, odd already right? even if these flavors worked together, which im not sure they do, this beer does not showcase them well. the base sour is a little amateurish, rough to me, hazy and under carbonated and not even particularly clean on the kettle souring, lemony yeah, which brings up a grapefruit element thats natural and true to the paloma of course, but its also a little cheesy to me. no head at all on this, very little carbonation, and a strange dull orange color and haze, stained by the ancho peppers no doubt, not real appealing looking. the nose is odd too, light smoke from the peppers, earthy, it clashes with the sourness, raisin sweetness is unexpected, likely also from the pepper, i get old couch, cat pee, and concentrated lemon and lime juice that live in those yellow and green plastic bottles in the door of your fridge. citrus does not present as fresh to me. the flavor is curious, there is some back end heat, an earthy richness, the ancho is definitely unique in a beer like this, but like, give it to me in a decent brown ale or something, this sourness is so weird with it. catty for sure for some reason, musty, bitter a little bit from grapefruit, and relatively acidic. some light soupy grain in here too, maybe wheat, keeping it beery enough, but this either just doesnt work as a flavor combination, or its so poorly executed that its not working in this instance. the tequila aspect is certainly missing too from the paloma. usually when i have been i dont like i suggest that there is some potential, but im not sure about this one...