Salted Kiwi Berliner Weisse
Rush River Brewing Company

a really neat beer, poured from a firkin at 331 club. its a oak fermented berliner with kiwi fruit and pink salt, a cool idea and a nice combination of flavors, especially from the cask! the pour is a little unexciting, a pale straw color, washed out looking and almost totally flat. it feels flat when i drink it too, they didnt get the recharge quite dialed in the vessel, but thats my only real critique of an otherwise excellent beer. the nose is funky for a berliner, must have picked up some wild funk from the oak fermentation, a cool touch for a beer like this, giving it nice yeast complexity far beyond the normal one note lactic thing the style is known for. i smell some tropical juiciness, hops too oddly enough, and some rich minerals and new oak, very appealing. the flavor is nice, the salt and sourness in front of the kiwi, but the fruit definitely can be tasted, sweet and tart at the same time, quite natural but a bit faint. the salt is robust, earthy, and dries this out wonderfully in the finish, i wasnt expecting it to be so dramatic, and i really like that aspect. obviously more carbonation would do wonders for a beer like this, but the flavors they have developed are awesome. just enough acidity to bring up the kiwi, and i love the funkiness from the barrel fermentation. i can still taste the wheat too. a really neat beer, they would do well to refine it just a bit and get it in cans! i had no idea these guys were doing this sort of thing!