Category Archives: 4 – Good (buy)

Wicked Weed Brettaberry

Brewery: Wicked Weed Brewing
Country: USA
ABV: 5.5%
Style: American Wild Ale
Other Notes: Tart Farmhouse Ale with berries & honey

Brewer Description: (from bottle) Brettaberry, a tart farmhouse ale whose inspiration is drawn from freshly baked berry pie, features a half-pound per gallon of strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries. The sweet acidity of the berries paired with the mild farmhouse funk of our house culture is rounded by the addition of full bodied, Haw Creek Honey.

Memory is not a fleeting picture grasped only in the mind’s eye. Memory is a guileless traveller, discovering avenues through the sights, aromas, and flavors of our daily experience. As brewers, our daily experiences orbit around creating beers that convey something more than flavor, we use the palate to express ideas and feelings. The bottle you hold contains more than a complex, balanced beverage. It holds the aromas that echo fresh cut blades of humid august grass, the fizzing noises of warm summer rain on a slate, and tart flavors of ripe berries that roll over us like floured pins over dough. This is our connection to beer – we hope it will be yours as well.

My rating: 4
My beeradvocate.com rating: 4.21
My ratebeer.com rating: 4.1

Intro: A 500ml bottle, bottled on 20th November 2015. Poured into a Lost Abbey teku glass.
Appearance: A slightly hazy strawberry orange pink colour with an almost two finger white head that dissipates fairly quickly but left lots of clingy lacing.
Aroma: Tart mixed berries although it seems strawberry is most prominent, brett funkiness, barnyard, mustiness with hints of honey.
Taste: Tart, lightly sour, strawberry, raspberry and blackberry with mild funkiness and perhaps a touch of lemon and pepper.
Mouthfeel: Medium body with moderate carbonation and a dry-ish finish.
Overall: This was nice, refreshing and easy to drink. I’m not getting much of the honey as it just seems like berry sweetness, but I’m sure its mixed in with that and also guessing that the honey adds to the body.

Crooked Stave Raspberry Origins

Brewery: Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project
Country: USA
ABV: 7.5%
Style: American Wild Ale

Brewer Description: (from bottle) Burgundy Sour Ale aged in oak barrels with raspberries.

My rating: 4
My beeradvocate.com rating: 4.42
My ratebeer.com rating: 4.3

Intro: A 375ml bottle, bottled in December 2015. Poured into a Cantillon ballon glass.
Appearance: A dark burgundy ruby red colour with a just over one finger off pink with a dark orange hue head that dissipated fairly quickly to a thin cap with some nice lacing.
Aroma: Very nice sweet and tart raspberry jammy aromas with perhaps a hint of oak.
Taste: Sour and tart raspberries and lemon to begin, followed by some light sweet jammy raspberries and a hint of oak. It finishes sour again with lemon, some citric acidity and a touch of grapes.
Mouthfeel: Medium bodied with moderate to light carbonation and a dry-ish finish.
Overall: The aromas were stunning and while the taste didn’t quite match up to the aroma, it was still very good.

Feral War Hog

Brewery: Feral Brewing Co.
Country: Australia
ABV: 7.5%
Style: American IPA
Other Notes: Treat like milk, refrigerate when possible

Brewer Description: (from can) Prepare to be tagged and bagged as this Full Metal Jacket of an IPA rains an apocalyptic, resinous hellfire of clustered hops and passionfruit aromas upon the senses. There’s nowhere to hide, so gear up, sound off, and blast “Ride of the Valkyries” at full volume, because, soldier, you’re at war. We love the taste of IPA in the morning.

My rating: 4
My beeradvocate.com rating: 4.26
My ratebeer.com rating: 4.1

Intro: A 375ml can with unfortunately no canned on or best before date. Poured into a Lost Abbey teku.
Appearance: A cloudy, lightly dark golden orange colour with a just under two finger white head that dissipated quickly while leaving only sparse lacing.
Aroma: Tropical mango, peach, passionfruit and some citrusy mandarin with hints of grass. Very juice like.
Taste: Citrusy orange, orange rind bitterness, grapefruit and juicy passionfruit.
Mouthfeel: Medium bodied with moderate carbonation.
Overall: A nice, juicy and easy to drink IPA. Aromas were especially good.

Omnipollo Karluminium

Brewery: Omnipollo
Country: Sweden
ABV: 6%
Style: Fruit Beer
Other Notes: Sour Wheat Ale. Brewed and bottled by Omnipollo at Buxton Brewery in the UK (England)

Brewer Description: (from website) Sour cherry brew on 40oz bottle with as much cherries as we could fit for Karl’s birthday. Max the beer, max the love.

My rating: 4
My beeradvocate.com rating: 4.03
My ratebeer.com rating: 3.9

Intro: A 330ml bottle with a best before date of 25th December 2018. Poured into a d’Achouffe tulip glass.
Appearance: A cloudy purplish red colour with a one finger pinkish head that dissipated quite quickly while leaving some lacing.
Aroma: Cherry, raspberry, lactose and yoghurt.
Taste: A bit light, but its sweet and sour cherry with a light hint of yoghurt.
Mouthfeel: Medium bodied with moderate carbonation.
Overall: I liked the aroma, but its taste was slightly on the watery side, yet surprisingly medium bodied. Having said that, it definitely grew on me the more I drank it. I would get this again.

Almanac Saison de Brettaville

Brewery: Almanac Beer Co.
Country: USA
ABV: 7.2%
Style: Belgian Saison
Other Notes: Farm to barrel. Brettanomyces ale aged in white wine barrels

Brewer Description: (from bottle) We love brettanomyces! This wild yeast, better known as “brett,” brings out a wide range of flavors and aromas in beer, from exotic fruits to earthy funk. We added a dozen different brett strains to our dry-hopped Saison Dolores, then aged it in white wine barrels for many months. The result is an intricate farmhouse ale with the kind of nuance and depth that only brett can create.

My rating: 4
My beeradvocate.com rating: 4.25
My ratebeer.com rating: 4.1

Intro: A 375ml bottle, bottled in September 2015. Poured into a Lost Abbey teku.
Appearance: A nice hazy golden colour with a two finger white head that had pretty good retention and nice lacing.
Aroma: Flowers and orange zest with hints of grapefruit, oak, pine and brett funk.
Taste: White wine with hints of oak, mango, candied pineapple, lemon and funk.
Mouthfeel: Medium bodied with moderate carbonation.
Overall: This was nice and easy to drink. Only a little sour, but well balanced and still good after almost 19 months.