Embrace The Funk - Hail Fellow Well Met
Yazoo Brewing Company

 

I hesitated to even rate this one and some would say that I should not. However, I could not keep thinking about how hard I tried to drink it. I saw the raving reviews, read the enticing description, remembered how much it was recommended, remembered how much it cost. Was it a joke...like how great your wedding cake will be after one year? Here it goes...

The color was surprisingly vibrant. The blueberry and currant showed through much like a carbonated blueberry acai juice. The nose was very acetic much like a dry red vermouth. The taste... pungent, vinegary, very very vinegary. Mouthfeel...sour yes, mostly acetic vinegar...currant...none of the barrel that I was hoping and longing for. I took sip after sip wanting something to change. Family members tried it, my grandmother even tried it. No one would finish it. Drainpour.

Bought straight from Yazoo. This coming off of a run of great beers in the Embrace the Funk series that I thoroughly enjoyed, but I don't get this one...never had anything like it...true...don't want to again. After 2,000+ beers, there not much that surprises me anymore, but this one did.

Simply world class.... The melding of all the flavors are impeccable.... Blackberries, currants, tartness, booze.... Barrel is evident.... Oakiness... 10.1% is quite warming... Perfect Christmas beer. Hope I can find another for closer to the holiday... I love this... Like a rich decadent plum pudding...

Bottle:
A burgundy pomegranate cloudy body that comes across as a ruddy rusty brown. The head did have a pinkish hue to it, I think... it fizzled away so fast, I couldn't quite tell.

I am getting a medicinal "herbal tonic" note before even starting to analyze the beer. Getting my nose up close and personal and wow! A tremendously interesting (dare I say intoxicating) scent with blackberries, dark cherry, and a port-like wine barrel aspect surrounding it all. Then there's the part of the nose that had me thinking "herbal tonic" - and I'd guess that it's the sagebrush. It has a pseudo ginger/birch beer root aspect to it. There's also a little wild ale sourness in back that grows with warmth.

This one is a little flat and more tart than I expected from the nose. There's a bit of a quality craft birch beer to open. The the wild ale notes come on: sour cherry, blackberry, black currants, with a leathery background. Not as deep in flavor as I expected further into the sip, with the tartness is lightening the impresion to me. I am not getting much of any whiskey, and the barrel and/or presumed sagebrush are indistinguishable from each other and light overall to me.

A very interesting beer and had the complex nose transferred a little better to the taste, I'd have it probably at least a notch higher. I still enjoyed sipping on it to the very end.

 

Thanks goes out to Buck89 for this brew.

12 oz. Bottle

Poured into a tulip a pretty nice cloudy grapeish color, pretty nice carbonation, with a pretty nice quick/fizzy small light tan head, which also leaves minimal sticky lacing behind. The nose is malty, yeasty, sour/tart, with some blackberries, black currants, some whiskey. The taste is really nice, malty, yeasty, nice touch of whiskey, nice sour/tart note, blackberries, black currants. Full Body, ABV hidden very well, with a nice dry/bitter finish. Overall, this one surprised me, very tasty. Thanks John!

 

 

This is an amazingly unique beer. Muddy reddish-brown on the pour with a short-lived frothy pink/tan head. Really murky in the glass. Complex aromas: raisiny up front with subtle whiskey, oak, faint berries, cherries, and a hard to describe spicy quality (from the spicebush, I suppose). Slightly tart fruit (currants, blackberries) was front and center on the first sip, but enveloped with supporting notes from the barrel, the malt, and earthy, spicy notes. Slightly warm on the finish and slightly dry, with the spiciness on the finish. Very enjoyable.