Vincent
Buried Acorn Brewing Company

 

amazing beer right here, one of my favorites from our grape beer night, a really cool offering. its a strong dark sour, barrel aged, and spiked liberally with wine grapes, although im not sure which type. its got a deep purple color that stains even the dark base, a short head on it shows some beet purple saturated color, and it has a some purple through the black in the glass. the nose is amazing, sour and funky both, really cool ferment on this, with light smoke and some earthen bitterness from the dark roast, and some sweetness from the fruit, vinous sure, but more fortified to me, a port wine thing to it, some blackberry jam too, black tea, and an absurd amount of wood to this, almost rich to my senses despite it being sour too. the flavor is incredible, real mature with a ton of fruit character out in front of the dark malt. huckleberry, black currant with the acid, and some seriously robust wine grape flavor, amazing. i like the roast providing some bitterness and some depth, and the wood smooths this out and extends it. not too sour to drink a bunch of, its bretty too to me, nicely refined overall, and with a little vanilla and dark chocolate late as well. wonderful beer, i dont mind the alcohol warmth at all, and this opens up a lot as it sits, super complex. i love the dark base, this stood out from the rest of the grape beers we drank in the same session partially because of that. definitely in the top couple of beers ive had from these guys, big thanks to my man for sending this one out for me, its held up great in the cellar until now! wish i had another bottle! amazing beer wine hybrid here.

edit: just got into batch five on this, super incredible stuff, even better than i remember from the above review, and i now know vincent is in fact the grape varietal, perhaps a finger lakes specific varietal, now i need to try some vincent wine too! this iteration seems a little less robust on the grain side, doubled down on the fruit intensity, and dry for what it is, easily as much wine as it is beer as it presents, shocking purple color saturation and deep fruit notes, prune and blackberry leading the way. sourness is well restrained, a cool funk to it, lots of tannins, almost a natural wine fermentation profile. increasing scores slightly for this latest version, truly epic stuff, one of my favorites ever in this style space. how is it not getting more attention?!