Midnight Due
DuClaw Brewing Co.

 

L) Pours a lovely coffee color, a bit translucent, with a small cream colored head.

S) The nose is acid forward, with lovely notes of chassis and currant. You can almost make out a bit of sorghum and bourbon.

T) The flavor profile is actually quite nice. Very dark fruit forward similar to the nose, with some roastiness adding complexity and a very evident yet harmonious barrel character.

F) This brew has a surprisingly full body for the style, and has a medium carbonation that works very well with the profile.

O) This is actually surprisingly good for a 6-pack bourbon barrel aged sour. It is complex, yet drinkable. An easy recommendation to the cross over between roast and sour lovers.

 

 

 

12 ounce bottle into tulip glass, bottled on 2/27/2017. Pours fairly crystal clear dark ruby red/brown color with a 2 finger dense and fluffy light khaki head with great retention, that reduces to a nice cap that lasts. Nice spotty foamy lacing clings on the glass, with a fair amount of streaming carbonation. Fantastic appearance. Aromas of tart/sour lemon, lime, raisin, plum, apricot, berry, green apple, red grape, red wine, hay, straw, toasted oak, pepper, caramel, vanilla, toffee, brown sugar, and brown bread; with light notes of nuttiness, roast, bourbon, coconut, leathery/musty funk, and yeast/oak earthiness. Nice and pleasant aromas with good balance and complexity of fruity/funky/acidic yeast, dark/bready malt, and bourbon barrel notes; with solid strength. Taste of tart/sour lemon, lime, raisin, plum, apricot, berry, green apple, red grape, red wine, hay, straw, toasted oak, pepper, caramel, vanilla, toffee, brown sugar, and brown bread; with lighter notes of nuttiness, roast, bourbon, coconut, leathery/musty funk, and yeast/oak earthiness. Light-moderate lactic tartness and light yeast/oak spiciness on the finish. Lingering notes of tart/sour lemon, lime, raisin, plum, apricot, berry, green apple, red grape, red wine, hay, straw, toasted oak, pepper, caramel, vanilla, toffee, brown sugar, brown bread, coconut, bourbon, leathery/musty funk, and yeast/oak earthiness on the finish for a good bit. Very nice complexity, robustness, and balance of fruity/funky/acidic yeast, dark/bready malt, and bourbon barrel flavors; with a great malt/tartness balance, and zero puckering flavors after the finish. Light-moderate increasing dryness from tart/sourness. Medium carbonation and body; with a very smooth, moderately creamy/bready/grainy/acidic, and lightly tannic balanced mouthfeel that is great. Zero warming alcohol for 7%. Overall this is a delicious barrel aged dark sour ale. All around nice complexity, robustness, and balance of fruity/funky/acidic yeast, dark/bready malt, and bourbon barrel flavors; very smooth and easy to drink with the mellowly lactic/tannic/drying finish. Really similar to a Flanders Brown in style. Perfectly balanced fruity/acidic Brett/lacto complexity with dark/bready malts; and really nice Bourbon barrel presence. A very enjoyable offering.

 

Another foray into the realm of sours, another less than pleasurable experience...

I keep on trying to get into sours. All my craft brew buds keep telling me to keep at it. Well, I can't seem to find the one that I really like, and this one from DuClaw (a brewer I really like) is just not my style. This beer reminds me more of a carbonated (overly at that) red wine than anything else. It smells that a really boozy, red wine, tastes like a red wine, and even has that warmth (I guess attributed to the bourbon) as a red wine. If I wanted to drink red wine, I'd just open one of the bottles I keep around for the holidays.

Anyway, this might be my last dip into the sour end of the pool for quite some time...

 

 

Pours clear, dark brown in color with minimal head. Taste is apple, dark chocolate, vanilla, and light barrel. Medium bodied, moderate carbonation, sweet with light roastiness. Makes for a really interesting and tasty Belgian style stout beer. Was not able find a six of this, but it is a beer I would easily get a six of.

 

 

 

 

It's a sour crossed with dark lager crossed with a Belgian. Not bad... worth the purchase. Good to sip. I will have again for sure. DuClaw has another good one....

 

Things are progressing nicely with regard to my ongoing and systematic eradication of the Bottle Backlog here at Chez Woody and the results are noticeable, but it becomes incumbent upon me to drink and review new beers as they become available. I refer to this as "chipping", since it is just odds & sods without any overarching theme, such as brewery and/or style.

From the bottle: "Aged in Retribution bourbon barrels"; "This light/medium-bodied barrel-aged kettle sour combines the tart, stone fruit esters of Sour Me This, [sic] with the vanilla, charred oak, caramelized sugar, and dark malt notes of Retribution. Now pop that top, and ... Embrace The Darkness."; "Respect_the _Fluid".


I Pop!ped the cap & began a gentle pour, in keeping with my New Year's Resolution and my Lenten denial. Aggro pours from bottles are now (mostly) a thing of the past. My in-glass swirl raised a finger of dense, foamy, tawny head with modest retention, leaving decent lacing in its wake as it fell. Color was Dark Brown to Very Dark Brown with NE-quality clarity & deep ampber highlights. Nose had a grape-y, vinousness that reminded me more of brandy than of bourbon. Mouthfeel was medium, The taste had a definite sourness with a vanilla bent, but I was still thinking of wine, not liquor. It just did not put me in mind of bourbon, but it did make me think of some of my cousin Colby's wine barrel-aged beers at Ballast Point that I got to sample in 2008 or 2009. If I disagreed on that point, I did not disagree that it was sour. I dislike that "tart" & "sour" are sometimes used interchangeably when they are very different attributes. Tart is puckering while sour gets me at the hinges of my jaw and makes my ears tingle. This beer had exactly the latter effect. Whew! Finish was dry and vinous, IMHO. YMMV.