“This Northwest sour ale is a blend of red ales aged in red wine barrels for up to 25 months with dried elderberries. One of our most complex offerings, Elderberry captures flavors of dried dark fruits, red wine, leather, chocolate, earth and plum.”
Glassware: Stemmed tulip.
Appearance: Deep mahogany complexion with a short and loosely held overlay. It leaves a smattering of lace despite the lack of retention.
Aroma: As we were typing the appearance all we could smell were those luscious, sweet and slightly tart elderberries. Bringing the glass to the nose reveals more vinous tannins along with blueberry, plum jam, Merlot, clove, nutmeg, sour grape zappo’s, peppermint and musty oak barrels. Those vinous accents really develop as it settles in. Superb.
Flavour: Candied berries, spice, vinous dark fruits and lacto sourness to the fore. Followed by those jammy notes, spice, a hint of manky cheese and maybe even a flutter of Belgian Candi sugar through the middle. A surge of berry and or cherry sherbet forms late and shapes the tart, fruity and musty finish.
Mouthfeel: Frothy, tart with light-moderate body. Medium acidity and a lifted co2. The 7.1% AbV is well behaved. We’ll give this one a modest pucker rating of 3/5.
Overall: Another incredibly fun and delicious sour from these Oregonian’s (that’s probably a made up word). Every beer these guys brew is totally unique to the next one but one thing never changes…the quality! Very impressive!