Tapped In: Our Top 5 Sour Saturday Beers
07.30.17
ANDY FARRELL & STEVE BURNS
Our Sixth Annual Sour Saturday - our celebration of all things puckerishly delicious - kicks off August 5th. The gradual proliferation of sour ales in the craft beer marketplace is certainly worth noting. In a recent piece in October author Miles Liebtag notes that while 5% of Untappd check-ins are sours, “more new sours are being added to Untappd at an increasing rate, and that added availability means more consumers are facing sours on the aisles, with questions.” We’re here to narrow down some of our favorite yeasty darlings so you can swing by prepared and thirsty. For event details, head on over to our event page. Use the code SOURSAT2017 for $5 off your tickets!
Without further ado:
1). Perennial Suburban Beverage
What's Suburban about this refreshing gose? The fact you can have a couple (or five) and still responsibly function through the day. I'm not sure Perennial Artisan Ales of St. Louis, MO makes a bad beer. Heralded for their powerhouse imperial stouts, this 4.2% quencher is perfect for summer day drinkin'. Salty and tart, signature to the gose style, this beer is a prime example of old world German styles finding their way into modern day craft and does a fine job of making the style accessible.
Allagash has a talent for taking simple thematic elements and building them into complex beers. Inspired by the common crow’s love of blackberries, brewers age this Brettanomyces-fermented dark wheat ale for 5 months on Maine blackberries. Notes of chocolate covered cherry hide behind this brew’s tart blackberry funk. We’re looking forward to pairing this with our Whipped Ricotta and slipping into a happy coma!
Credit: Allagash Brewing Company
Dogfish Head’s (DFH) newest year-round effort knocks it out of the park. In typical DFH fashion, ingenuity and superior technical brewing combine in this boundary-pushing beer. DFH dubs call the Seaquench a mashup of the Kolsch, a Berliner and a gose styles. Seaquench finishes cleaner than most goses, and I don't know what black limes are, but this is my favorite beer of 2017 so far. If you need an even better endorsement, my wife buys this beer. By the case. I've never seen her buy cases of anything.
4. DeProef/New Glarus ABTsolution
My first DeProef collaboration beer was with another Midwest brewer, John Mallet from Bell's. Dirk, the professor of DeProef, and John made a beer called Van Twee, a 7.5% Dark ale made with Michigan cherry juice in 2008/2009 - a beautiful hybrid with notes of Porter and a dash of Abbey Dubbel. Since then, DeProefs collaborations have always been those worth seeking out. While this beer might be the least "sour" beer we tap for Sour Saturday, Mr. Daniel Carey of New Glarus and his beers don't come around very often. Take advantage of this opportunity.
If I could have just one beer for the rest of my life on a deserted island, Duchesse De Bourgogne would be it. I love this beer for many reasons. First, it's almost always available. Second, it’s great with food. Bright fruit shows up early and often, soft tannins from oak aging, and just enough sour pucker to let you know someone cared deeply about brewing this Flanders Red just right for you. I imagine that when this beer makes me pucker, somewhere a little Flemish man smiles.