Wine Barrel Golden Solera Tasting

For each of our two solera barrels we are bottling some of each pull as is for a baseline to compare all of our other variants against. This is the first pull from the wine barrel golden sour we brewed two years ago, hopefully the second pull will be in about six months.

Golden Solera - The Plain

Appearance – Clear golden with a thin white head. Looks just like the dry hopped version, right down to the mediocre head retention (not too surprising for a sour beer).

Smell – Deep oak, damp basement, and fruity Brett. There is a hint of acetic acid in the nose as well. A relatively clean aroma, lacking the layers of funky complexity that the best sours have.

Taste – Firm and clean lactic sourness on the first sip. A complex overripe apple fruitiness follows. The farmyard funk is subdued, but present. The oak is great, soft but pervasive. The wine character from the barrel is nice as well. The flavor has so much going on than the aroma, but it also has a light Flemish pale vinegar character.

Mouthfeel – Medium-thin body, with a slight tannic character. Medium carbonation, with more bubbles it might taste lambic-like.

Drinkability & Notes – For an unblended beer it has a good balance of oak, sourness, and Brett. Straight the oak and funk come out more than they did in the dry hopped version. However it is missing the aromatic complexity that even the low level of hopping provided that version. Not one of my favorite sour beers plain, but it is a good base for other flavors. It comes off as similar to Petrus Aged Pale, which is hard to complain about.