Punching up

Summer appears to have brought with it a slew of fruited sour beers. It's been observed, and I think quite rightly, that sour beer has a very limited appeal in Ireland, though our brewers remain determined to take a punt on it. Good for them. Here are the new ones to pass my way.

We start at Kinnegar, and Brewers At Play 23: Mango Gose. A head formed briefly on this, before leaving it millpond-still. The body is a shocking dayglo orange and as opaque as a glass of actual mango juice, which I'm sure is deliberate. It doesn't taste like juice though, and the tropical fruit is relegated to the aftertaste. Before that it's a rather plain and basic sour ale. I thought I could detect a slight salinity, though there's no salt listed on the ingredients. There's definitely no coriander either. The goal is to refresh, and it does that, slipping back easily with a low-impact 4.3% ABV. But for a professed mango gose, it barely tastes like mango and doesn't taste at all like gose. *shrug*

I anticipated an altogether more full-on fruit experience from Kahuna Krush, the latest Rye River seasonal. There are three different fruits in this one, including two I've never heard of: sudachi and calamansi, in with the cherry. Both of the strangers are citrus, and that's the dominant characteristic in the bright pink 4.5%-er. It turns out that adding citrus to cherry makes something taste like raspberry. There's also a strange kind of sweaty sourness in both the aroma and flavour, meaning it's not the fun and frivolous summer beer that it's pitched as, at least not for me. It's complex, properly sour, and makes good use of its ingredients. It didn't work for me, though. The wrong kind of tang. I will be wary of strange fruit in future.

It's over to Larkin's for the next three, all part of their new series of fruited sour beers. We begin with Acid Passion: Raspberry. I'm not a huge fan of raspberry in beer, generally, though this one takes a light approach, tasting very simply of raspberryade, which is miles better than thick and sickly jam. While it does contain lactose (and strawberries, for some reason), the texture is light and there's also no real sourness to speak of. It's busily fizzy, reflecting perhaps an aim to be a summer refresher, but the 6.4% ABV puts paid to that. This is dangerously easy drinking, and might even work well over ice, but beware of that sneaky booze. 

They get stronger too. Acid Passion: Passion Fruit is 6.5% ABV. Otherwise it's largely the same deal. The passion fruit is pretty much the be-all and end-all of what it does, but that's OK, I like passion fruit. There is a little extra sourness here than in the previous one, a clean salinity, which also makes it an improvement and balances the sweet tropical fruit nicely. As before, complexity is not part of the offer, but I don't really mind. Passion fruit always means a fun time and this one takes full advantage of that.

The final part of this trilogy is Acid Passion: Mango at 6.6% ABV. It looked like I was going to get proper head retention on this one but that didn't last long. It's probably the least flavoursome of the three, mango being a generally less distinctive fruit than the other two. As such, it's quite one-dimensional, with a very broad tropical-fruit-flavoured soft drink vibe. I think I get a touch of the lactose's sweetness, and a slight stickyness as well. It's certainly not the clean and simple summer drinking I had become accustomed to. But neither is it doing anything that justifies the beefy strength. Once again it's fine, and I'm sure will be appreciated this coming summer. It offers no more than the basics, however.

Enough messing. Time for something proper. Land & Labour kindly shipped this bottle of Crimson over as a freebie -- much appreciated as I had thus far failed to pick up one myself. It's a kriek/framboise blend, though with twice the cherry quotient compared to raspberry, both constituent parts being spontaneously fermented. The deep bloody-red darkness of it gives an impression of strength but it's only 5.5% ABV. There's a certain sweet jamminess to the aroma, alongside oaky spices. That sweet side contributes significantly to the flavour, but much more like real ripe fruit than jam or anything processed. There's a rounded lusciousness to the foretaste. Drier and sourer times follow, beginning with quite an overzealous carbonation, the sort of busy prickle which interferes with the taste. At least with a 75cl bottle I was able to let that flatten out as I went. There's a big dose of tannin too, from the cherry skins, perhaps? The spice is fainter than I'd like but there's enough to season the fruit nicely, and of course it's properly, puckeringly, mouth-wateringly sour. As with previous Land & Labours, the complexity here isn't quite up there with Belgium's best, but it's not far off.

It'll be interesting in particular to see if the Acid Passion series continues running. Releasing three at the start must provide a good indication of whether enough people are interested. I have no particular objection to the simplistic, fruited, kettle soured, beer that they represent, but I did find sessioning through a bunch of them to be a bit of a chore. Variety is good, and we certainly didn't need another IPA in that space, but I longed for something a bit more involved and, well, sour.