Beers for an unusual year

Urban Family Brewing Delicious Ambiguity
January 12, 2018
This raspberry and basil sour pops with notes of its advertised flavors. The basil leaf provides some sharpness on the finish while the raspberry is ubiquitous. Brewed in my sister’s neighborhood, this brew uses wild yeast that blends exquisitely with the dominant flavors. The wild yeast accents and the fruit presence does not allow it to dominate. All wild ales should aspire to these heights.


Stone Enjoy After 10.31.16
Enjoyed: Feb. 21, 2018
The wait was worth it. While not a hop bomb IPA, spiking this brew with
brettanomyces sends it on a far different course. This is not the simple Orval clone territory most craft brett beers inhabit. Stone’s love of hop experimentation creates an IPA full of gnarly hop character 18 months after bottling. Fully carbonated only at the “Enjoy After” date, the brett has not mellowed even though the hops have. Served at cellar temperature, you don’t miss a have hop infusion, not with the raft of bitter orange, lemon and horse blanket must released by the wild yeast.

Alpine Process of Belief Framboise 
March 9, 2018

Forget any worries about a fruit-forward Belgian Framboise – this number goes straight for the puckering sour intensity. The body is a pale orange, not tinged with violet as I expected. If the sour character asserted itself any further, Process of Belief would be too strong to drink. Aged in oak barrels and on raspberries, this sour has some good fruit notes, which are lighter than expected. That could be the influence of a year of cellar aging (I bought this at Alpine’s original taproom in its namesake city in the mountains east of San Diego).

The raspberry is not overwhelming but serves as a delicate background to the sour front. Late on the palate a firm line of charred oak intertwines with the sour character. This is s good as American sour gets, flipping the script and defying expectations for those of us accustomed to “Framboise” signifying a much fruitier beer. The fruit accents the sour and musty elements, not the other way around.

Cimay Doree 
March 24, 2018

Belgian’s Trappist brewers craft consistent strong ales, but few dabble with new beers. Chimay Doree is not a new ale, but the beer drank at meals by the Trappist monks. They finally decided to bring it to the lineup, and the timing is good for Chimay fans who don’t drink beers of that magnitude casually. Trappists don’t drink the high-gravity beers they sell, sticking to a lighter recipe.

After tasting Doree, I’m happy to take up their drinking habits. Doree clocks in at 4.8 percent ABV and at times, comes off as the little brother of Cinq Cents, their tripel. Along with the orange and coriander, notes of tangerine and even a spritz of lime emerge. It has a nice creamy lace and immediate ester and floral notes from its signature yeast. Body is burnt orange. Doree is still a heavy beer, so stick with the monks’ precedent and have only one.

Sierra Nevada BFD 
March 24
A simple hoppy blonde, this number from Sierra Nevada has more texture and nuance than the standard craft-brewed blonde. It has some grassy notes from the hops, which make BFD feel more complex than expected. Sierra Nevada BFD suits lawnmowing on humid summer day.

Bearded Iris Magic Words
May 2, 2018
This one-off fruited pale ale was made during Craft Brewers’ Conference occupying Nashville for the first week of May. The peach and strawberry notes shine through. Definitely small batch but definitely a winner, Magic Words is the type of fruited pale ale that makes me rethink a style I usually view dimly. It’s a little heavy for a summer quencher but it is undeniably rich and complex. Mimicking the look of a glass of the pulpiest orange juice imaginable, Magic Words is perfect fruited pale for summer drinking.

Bearded Iris Fresh Baked 
May 3, 2018
Another beer brewed for the CBC crowd. Now that BI is expanding into stouts, its series of sweet oatmeal stouts continues to excel. The sweet chocolaty nose rumbles into a viscous body. BI put actual chocolate chip cookies from Nashville’s Christie Cookie into the brewing vats along with vanilla and lactose. I can debate the presence of the lactose, where it pushes the stout in too sweet a direction. But I cannot quibble with the overall beer. Sweetness masks the booziness of a 9.5 percent ABV oatmeal stout. There’s a roughness akin to a chocolate chip or oatmeal cookie near the finish as the oatmeal character grows assertive.

Cherry Street Rip Roarin’ Mosaic-Citra-DDH IPA 
May 1, 2018
 This Forsyth County brewer makes a strong impression with this double-dry-hopped double IPA. Cloudy and dank, the hops could be more pronounced, but I have become spoiled thanks to Bearded Iris. Still, the 16-oz. cans go down smoothly for an 8 percent double IPA.

Bearded Iris Trickster 
May 26, 2018 
Bearded Iris and Austin-based Jester King teamed up to produce this IPA that leans on lighter flavors and textures but rivals anything else Bearded Iris produces in complexity. Along with Texas malts, Trickster uses Nelson and Motueka hops. Pouring as pale as pear juice, the hops positively sizzle, and the malts are light, biscuit-like and dry. Although among the lighter-bodied efforts from Bearded Iris, Trickster sports plenty of hop complexity, tropical fruit notes and piney notes. Pear, pineapple, a few spritzes of grapefruit intervene on the finish. At times the best could pass for the best poolside cocktail ever, but the good hop bitterness keeps Trickster from drafting too far. As a bonus, the two brewers filled a barrel with a second batch of Trickster, a beer that could possess some startlingly different characters once it emerges from oak.

Bearded Iris Money Tree 
May 26, 2018
Yes, another CBC collaboration, this double IPA conjured by Bearded Iris and San Diego’s Modern Times. At 8.1 percent ABV, Money Tree bears the bitter yet fruity tones of Galaxy, Amarillo and Cashmere hops. Along with the massive but even loads of citrus from tangerine , lemon, grapefruit and country-style orange juice, it has a bit of herbal and pine needle crispness on the finish.

Sumco Tripel Half Batching Brewing (Hendersonville) and Briarscratch Brewing (Cottontown) 
June 2, 2018
Two new breweries in Tennessee’s Sumner County built this fine triple together. That I’m immediately reminded of Westmalle Tripel is the highest compliment I can pay. There’s a rich body of citrus and tropical fruits from mango to a silver of bananas that concludes with a dry, biscuit malt finish. Sweet at times, but it’s driven by the fruitier moments, not anything else. Like all good triples – which I do – the ample citrus hides any booze character, shielding the 9.4 percent ABV. That could be a dangerous trait, but not as a one-off. It’s a fine triple for a region that is not producing. I live here, I love triple and I get entirely too few tastes from Middle Tennessee brewers. So Sumco can pour anytime of the year for me.

Bells Sparkleberry (Belgian tripel-style ale brewed with raspberries)
June 10, 2018
How badly did I need this? For all the experimentation with IPA and sour, dozens of Belgian beer styles go neglected. Since American triples often follow a similar template, kudos to Bells for making a fruited triple. At 9 percent, Sparkleberry doesn’t hide its triple-level alcohol strength. The triple provides a good platform for the fruit to shine. The raspberry flavors are pretty intense and give off notes of other bramble fruits. In summertime, Sparkleberry is even brighter and refreshing. I don’t get to say that about many beers this strong, but it provides relief from oppressive humidity with the right amount of fruit atop a solid triple foundation.