Embrace the Funk - Octatonic
Yazoo Brewing Company

From a can dated 04/23, into a wide wine glass. I'm hoping not too old, but this is what I could find.

Pours a nice bright yellow, completely clear, with some long-lasting white foam and a ton of lacing left on the glass. Aroma is strange. All funk and bright sourness, VERY barnyard. Great stuff for someone who loves weird flavors. There's also an oaky note as well, in addition to white grape must on top of all that other funk. Flavor is a crazy one. The white wine notes are quite powerful and there's a strong sweet note in addition to the high levels of puckering sourness. Tons of parmesan-ish weirdness as well. It finishes with a really bright bitterness and some cereal malt flavors, as well as some more dry oddness on the back end. A little bitter, slightly sweet and coating, and leaves some residual esters. Mouthfeel is good, nice and bright, which helps clean up some of the sweetness and more powerful funk.

Overall, for being as old as it is, this one is a blend of sour, musty farmhouse ale and bright white wine, with plenty of sweetness, bitterness, and a lot of oddness. I like this one about as much as the tequila aged ale I had from Yazoo over the summer, and that one was really good. Their aged wild ales always have a lot of barrel character and interesting ways to incorporate yeast flavors with fruit and hops.

Wow, I like it. Nose is horrible, says the hophead in me. Taste makes up for the nosebleed caused by the pungencies in the nose. Tartness is not as great as expected. Good gut beer!!!

 

Spearheaded by Yazoo, but also complemented with seven other sour ale savant brewer's prowess at making the spontaneous, the wild and the more funky side of sour.

As they fully Embrace the Funk, Octatonic sings a symphany of aromas that tease and taunt the nose with the briskness of damp burlap, saddle leather, cellar-like scents, attic woods, mossy and wine rot. With its funky fresh scent swirling around a pale and foggy golden hue and a fleeting champagne froth. As a scant sweetness greets the tongue, hints of sourdough, wafer and honeysuckle skirts across the early palate.

The lively ale really gets going as its bubbly acidity pops on the middle palate to release a host of weathered fruits of grapefruit, orange, pear and pineapple with a lemony and lime-like kick. Prickly in its sourness, notions of dry oak aged white wines, french ciders and an off-vinegar tartness carry a candied sweet and sour interplay. Trailing into a more earthy taste late, its the mossy burlap, leather and woodsy flavors that close the session with a peppery sourness and a winey impression.

Light, crisp and largely refreshing, the ale flirts with a watery sensation much like the under carbonated character of unblended lambic. Yazoo has done a nice job leading the charge with this wild ale with a lot of cooks in the kitchen.