585. Bruery Sour in the Rye

Two Bruery beers two days in a row! What are the chances? Actually, we planned to drink this last night, but didn’t get to it, so that means it is up first tonight. This certainly puts us north of a baker’s dozen with the Bruery, including Tart of Darkness, Oude Tart, Rueuze, 5 Golden Rings, Marrón Acidifié (a collabo with Cigar City), Autumn Maple, Humulus Session, 3 French Hens, Saison de Lente, Rugbrød, Hottenroth, Orchard White and Saison Rue. Ring in that New Year!

Sour in the Rye pours a hazy but brilliant burnt orange with a dazzlingly white head that rolls down the side of the glass when swirled in creamy bright swirls and also has intense orange highlights coming through the glass. There is citric and lactic tartness mixed with spicy oak and rye in the nose followed by loamy earth; it is really quite splendid. Flavors start with young oak and fruit—pear and apple—followed quickly by lactic tartness that transitions into a brighter citric bite towards the finish. There is also some candy and biscuit buried underneath the other flavors in the front and middle, and a decent tannic bite from the oak in the final third of the beer. The vitamin C citric bite and the spicy rye with oak combine nicely in the finish; both linger a bit, but leave the palate mostly clean with only a slight mineral grit on the tongue. The body is medium and slightly chewy with bright, clean carbonation that, combined with the tartness, draws out the other flavors. I like this beer quite a bit more than the Tart of Darkness from last night, mostly because it is brighter and more bracing; while it provides an equal amount of blushing on the cheeks, the tartness is clean and sharp without the lingering acetic burn. There is also more body to balance the tart components of the beer, and more depth of flavor to carry the beer as a whole. I’ll be looking for another bottle of this to see how it ages.

From the bottle: “Deliciously sour, bursting with spicy rye notes and hints of oak from the barrels it was aged within.”

From the Bruery website: “We brewed this ale with around 40% rye as a base malt and let our sour yeast and bacteria eat away at it in oak barrels for over a year creating a sour ale with a complex character of rye spice, oak and a subtle funk.”

ABV: 7.8%

(1/1/2014)