Farmhouse rock

Today's rough theme is Belgo-American farmhouse beers, which frankly may as well be a style in its own right at this stage. Here's how it's shaking out on both sides of the pond, illustrated via some Tekus in UnderDog.

I like Crooked Stave's beers. By and large they've managed the subtlety and nuance that working in the sour vernacular demands. So I was happy when a new one showed up on the UnderDog roster: Mama Bear's Sour Cherry Pie. Ignoring the name, the liquid looked a bit grim: a dark and murky purple, like the junior infants have just washed off their finger paint.

Sour cherry and hard oak come through in the aroma, which is OK but there's a worrying absence of spices. Sure enough on tasting it's mostly hard vinegar with only the faintest lacing of red fruit: raspberry as much as cherry. There's a lack of refinement; a raw muddy quality that beers like this shouldn't have: maturing it in barrels ought to mean it actually matures.

I got through my 33cl of it. There's just enough fruit fun to make it bearable (ha ha), but it is not a well-made sour beer. It feels like someone has decided that sourer is better, and that is objectively not the case. Belgians are just as capable as Americans of making this mistake too, of course. Nevertheless, Mama Bear should clean up her act.

It's always fun to see American specialists in Belgian-style beer working with the originating breweries of what they do. Hill Farmstead and De Ranke springs immediately to mind. I'm sure there are others. Today's second offering involves Dupont and Allagash. The latter is one of the highest profile US breweries whose wares aren't available in Ireland, so it was exciting to see them show up even if it's just by way of Belgium-brewed collaboration.

The beer is called Brewers' Bridge and it's definitely a saison and definitely in the Dupont mould. Primarily it demonstrates that crisp appley effect of Saison Dupont, with a little honey and melon added for fruity complexity. I confess I can't taste what the Americans brought to the party here: no brashness or weirdness, for better or worse. I'm often critical of the daft and barely-drinkable results that brewery collaborations sometimes produce. This has more of a sense of Dupont showing Allagash how to create a classic saison in all its subtle and balanced complexity. And what brewer wouldn't want that?

I had hoped one or other of these would give me the Hill Farmstead or Jolly Pumpkin effect I was craving, but it wasn't to be.