Rainbow Cult
Saltfire Brewing

Review: 2242
Name: Rainbow Cult
Brewery: SaltFire Brewing
Location: Salt Lake City, UT
Style: Kettle Sour
A.B.V.: 5%
Canned: Unknown
Date: 08 Nov 2024
I am continuing with another Saltfire beer, Kettle Sour. I am using a tulip glass and serving at 42 degrees. The pour created a pinkish two-fingered, frothy, and airy head with poor retention. The quick dissipation left no lacing on the glass. The color is orange with deep amber hues, charting at S.R.M. 8, and mostly clear. The appearance is average; however, I am suspicious of the color of a blackberry sour.
The blackberry notes are muted and not as fruity or bright as expected. Nosing the glass further, I smell lightly toasted malts, fruity sweetness, lemons, acidic acid, and floral. The aromas are straightforward.
On the first sip, I taste lemons, berries, lightly toasted malts, and floral notes. Sipping the glass again, I notice acidic acidity, fruity sweetness, and a bit of earthiness.
The beer's body is light and has high carbonation. The mouthfeel is tart and puckering, and the finish is crisp and clean.
The Rainbow Cults fruit component of this beer is lackluster; I taste berries, but they are not defined. Sipping the glass, I noticed how the beer balanced sweetness, tartness, and sourness. This beer is not one of Saltfire's best.

pride beer, fruited kettle sour with blackberries, its fine, nothing special, but the souring is good in this, not too tart to be drinkable, offsets some of the fruit sweetness, but the beer overall is a little bit lackluster to me, like the refinement could be higher, the fruit may not be real berries but rather a puree or extract or something, and the carbonation is lacking a bit. pinkish color but muted, hazy, and not bright, without much head at all, some bubbles stay, big and sparse. the nose is sweet and tart, a little cheesy but close to clean, restrained which is nice, lemony which highlights the berry element, and i think there is enough grain for it to still be beery, to its credit, a lot of these miss by omitting too much of it. it almost smells like a fruit flavored soda or seltzer. the berry thing is just that, a berry thing, generic, if its real berries its either lost its identity in the ferment or there arent enough of them in this, but it almost has a candy aspect to it. not bad, fully pleasant, slightly floral, but real blackberries pop way harder than this does. the tang is good, there is some back end citrus, soft wheaty grain character, and overall not enough life. still, a neat offering, a worthwhile endeavor, and i like saltfire a lot and am thankful to have had the chance to drink through some new to me beers from them in a recent session, this one just isnt quite up to the level of their best.