Hello beer lovers and welcome to another edition of the
NorCal Beer Blog's brew review.
Tonight’s featured beer is Almanac Beer Company Farmer's
Reserve Blackberry - Ale Brewed with Blackberries and Aged in Wine Barrels.
From the Almanac Beer Company website:
“We love blackberries. Tart, sweet and complex but guarded by thorny branches,
these alluring fruit have been a favorite of ours since we added them
to our very first beer. This sour blonde ale is infused with loads of
coastal Blackberries from Swanton Berry Farm in California’s Santa Cruz
Mountains and aged in wine barrels for many months. Pair with duck dishes and
summer salads.
Farm to Barrel
Our Farm to Barrel beers focus on the eons-old tradition of
aging beers in oak barrels. This American wild ale was aged in used wine casks
with our house “Dogpatch” sour culture, a cocktail of wild Belgian and American
yeasts, including San Francisco sourdough starter. The yeasts slowly morph the
beer from a traditional ale into something wild, creating a mild acidic bite as
well as pulling oak and vanilla flavors from the barrel. After maturing, the
barrels are blended together—creating a vinous, delicate beer that captures the
essence of a particular harvest. Farm to Barrel Beers are alive in the bottle,
and will continue to mature gracefully for several years.”
Let’s get started!
Appearance: Pours
a cloudy pink/orange color with a nice pale pink, almost white head and nice
lacing.
Aroma: Grainy and
cereal malts, funky yeast, tart and sour berries, oak and a slight sweet scent.
Taste: Crisp
blackberry tartness with just the right amount of sweetness to balance it out,
oak, vanilla, yeast funk, vinous tannins and sweet cereal maltiness.
Overall: Light,
intensely drinkable and over the top awesome, Almanac Beer Company Farmer's
Reserve Blackberry is amazingly good (not that I’m surprised). This 7% ABV offering might (I said, might) be
my favorite of the series so far. When
the glass was empty I was tempted to open another bottle. I will be picking more of this up and I
highly recommend that fans of the style do so as well. You’ll be pleasantly surprised!
Cheers!
Mark Harvey
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