Sour Reserve

I will be judging this beer as category 28C in the BJCP guidelines, Wild Specialty Beer. The beer was described to me as an oak barrel aged blend of a soured one, two, and three year old batch of a blonde ale. While this is reminicent of the gueuze style of beer it's not a true gueuze, as this is not a wheat ale. But the blending style is very similar to how a gueuze is made. So due to it being a sour ale and aged in oak, it's a good addition to 28C

The color is solid gold and hazy. The head is white, frothy, and fairly long lasting which is nice. The head does leave a nice ring of lacing around the glass. The aroma to me smells strongly of sour white grapes, but is followed up with fresh grain and a light lactic aroma. The Brettanomyces character is subdued and at pleasant level for me. In the flavor we got soft bready malt and a low amount of earthy hop flavor. Some of that could be blended in with the low brett flavor as well. There is a stiff lactic tartness that compliments a white grape-like flavor as well just like in the aroma. I get some fresh woody oak flavor that I wasn’t really picking up much in the aroma, but it’s well placed and not at all over-done like a lot of other wood-aged beers today. The finish is sour and dry which leaves your thirst feeling a quenched, which is a welcome sensation on this warm day. The body is medium-light and the carbonation is fairly high, which lends to the perception of crisp dryness. I do get a little light tannic woody sensation, but It’s mild and nothing to really take major notice of.

I think this is a solid standard wood-aged sour. I really enjoy that we didn’t have any fruit or other crazy additions to this beer as it does a great job of standing up on it’s own. The base beer was very nice and I like the fact that they blended these various ages of the beer together. It's one of the better sours I've had in recent tasting.