Lemon Love Letter
Blue Point Brewing Company

Blue Point Brewing Co. "Lemon Love Letter"
16 fl. oz. can coded "02OCT22 BP1035" and sampled on 19JUN22
$4.99 @ Total Wine & More, Cherry Hill, NJ

Notes via stream of consciousness: So what do we have here? It's a "doughnut-inspired pastry sour ale with lemon and natural flavors" at 8% ABV. The label also lists "Lemon. Vanilla. Marshmallow." but I'm not sure if they're ingredients or not, maybe those are the flavorings. It certainly smells sweet and lemony. There's vanilla there as well and it smells like a birthday cake. I wonder if they used the birthday cake flavoring from Amoretti. In the glass it's a hazy deep golden with an orange sheen beneath a standard sized head of white foam. The taste is not as sweet as the aroma suggests it will be, and there's less vanilla and more lemon. It's tart but not that sour in comparison to a lot of other sour beers on the market, and the malt is fairly sweet. It starts with the sweet malt and vanilla and then the acidity and lemon jump in before it comes to a dry and gently acidic finish with lemon and vanilla lingering. The alcohol never shows. It's a nice sipping beer. I'd certainly imagine that you could serve it on it's own as a dessert beer but I doubt it would make a good ingredient in something else as you'd just be transferring the vanilla and lemon flavoring from this into that. In the mouth it's medium bodied and dextrinous with a gently crisp carbonation that leaves it smooth. The head held up only fairly well but it did leaves some lacing as it went although I'm only about halfway through. I think it's nicely balanced and although it's a bit one-sided with vanilla & lemon it delivers what it promises.
Review #8,088

 

Nice and interesting sour. Brief white head and amber body. Bold lemon notes at first that quickly take a seat back to vanilla pastry aromas. Nice after taste of the melded lemon, vanilla, and marshmallow. They did a good job in making it taste like a lemon donut. Carbonated feel with the subtle malts and marshmallows really bringing together the pastry aspect of this beer, the marshmallow just makes it feel gooey and good.
There is virtually no alcohol taste in this beer, no bitterness or boozy aroma or anything which is very sneaky at 8%. A very well done sour. There's somewhat lactic notes but I think the lemon overshadows it in terms of acidity and tang. And while the lemon dominates here, the vanilla and marshmallow are a very nice cushion. Overall it's enjoyable for the donut aspects but the lemon makes it a very refreshing beer.
Purchased very fresh on Long Island with an expiration date of 10/5/2022. It probably would pair well with the namesake donut at their collab's shop in NYC, but the logistics of that are a bit tricky, even for someone in the area. That being said, I would definitely buy again.