Avery Brewing Raspberry Sour
Avery Brewing has done some astounding things with wild ales and barrels. Their Brabant and Rufus Corvus are world class products so when I happened across four wild ales from the brewery it was a no-brainer that I pick them all up. The only question, as posed by the below tweet from late May, was which one to start with…
In the mood for a sour, but which one? pic.twitter.com/e47nb0u4b0
— The Barley Blog (@barleyblog) May 24, 2015
I opted for the Raspberry Sour first. This 5.5% ABV wild ale seemed to be, at the time, the most straightforward of the bunch — well, as straightforward as a barrel-aged sour can get.
Appearance
The beer poured a bit darker in color than expected with a short-lived cap of beige foam.
Aroma
Plenty of raspberry fruitiness wafts from the surface with a soft tartness, light wood and a touch of caramel as the brew warms.
Taste
While Raspberry Sour is more straightforward than the other three sours in the tweet above, it’s anything but boring. Plenty of sour tartness puckers the lips and grabs the tongue while hints of wood, vanilla, burnt caramel and a good bit of raspberry in the background. The beer finishes dry with a lingering tartness.
Overall
It’s hard to knock this beer from Avery, but when compared to some of the other barrel-aged wild ales they produce, this one is fairly tame. That said, it’s still much better than many of its contemporaries and just proves that the brewery knows what they are doing when it comes to beers of this style. I do believe I’ll be on the look out for more of this one in the future.
Rating: 4/5
