Idefix
Elysian Brewing Company

The best description for Idefix would simply be "specialty beer." Elysian calls it a "Belgian sour persimmon ale" and my server described is as a modestly sour beer comparable to a Flanders brown. A quick google search suggests the name may derive from the French expression "idée fixe" meaning "fixed idea." I don't know if that's true, but the concept here is intriguing.

Idefix is one of the first collaborative efforts of Elysian with their partners at New Belgium. The beer is brewed in downtown Seattle at the 9-bbl Elysian Fields brewpub using organic pale malts, curry leaf, and 80 pounds of pureed persimmons. It receives a primary fermentation with brettanomyces lambicus and a secondary souring with lactobacillus amylovorus bacteria. The result is a complex ale of considerable refinement and grace.

The beer is clear cranberry-brown with sluggish carbonation, a velvet-soft head, and a smell suggestive of pomegranate. I suppose that's the persimmons though sour elements also arrive in the nose. The taste features a forward measure of tartness without approaching the puckering sourness of wild red ales. The full effect is one of a smooth bodied alchemical fruit elixir with an intriguing exotica. It is a highly individualistic and highly successful melding of divergent flavor concepts that would probably work wonders alongside some Thai food.