Where the sweet turns to sour

I was at the Great Dane earlier this week and sampled their Strawberry sour or tart or whatever they call it. The brew was very tasty. Light, a bit of strawberry, and a nice tartness. Not deadly like Destihl and not barely discernable. It was just right. A fine summer brew.

This blonde is purple: Booberry Blonde by Four Day Ray Brewing

When I first landed at Four Day Ray's website, I thought I was at the the wrong place. There were only pictures of food so I figured the site belonged to a restaurant. Then I saw the Four Day Ray Brewery logo. I had indeed gone to the correct website. It is very odd to me when a brewery pushes their food to the fore and you have to go to another menu entirely in order to see any beer. I mean this was Four Day Ray Brewing, after all. Relegating your beer to a subordinate position, to simply being an accessory to food which comes in big, colorful photos just rubs me the wrong way.

Now, these Hoosiers aren't alone in giving food pride of place over beer but there aren't even glasses of beer in the photos to show any complementary relationships. There are many more photos of French fries than of lovely glasses of suds with big heads carelessly spewing enchanting beery aromas and filled with sumptuous liquid whose burnished colors are like a siren call to your tastebuds.

Perhaps that is how brewpub breweries survive these days. You lure folks in with the promise of chow and give them the hard sell on your beer once you've got them in your clutches.

As I have in years past, I attended Gencon this year which meant a midsummer trek to Indianapolis. I like to sample local brews while on vacation and even try to bring some back home, if I can. Just like last year, I went to a liquor store just a few blocks from my hotel to find something to tuck away in my cooler for sampling at home. The selection this year paled in contrast to last year with IPA's and various Belgian-style ales dominating the shelves. In the end, I returned to Madison with a six-pack of their Booberry Blonde, a "tart blonde ale" made with booberries.

My impression was that this was a summer seasonal as the can had something on it indicating the beer's high refreshment quotient being perfect for warm weather. But, upon closer inspection of the Four Day Ray website, I have discovered that it is, in fact, a year-round brew.

This beer looked wonderful. Why wouldn't you want to feature photos of it on your website? My glass had a big, frothy, pink head that had staying power. The beer was a lovely light purple and clear. I spied lots of bubbles inside. The aromas were all fruity beginning with a lemony tartness followed by hints of booberry.

The brewery was right to tout this brew as a summer quencher with its light body. Considering all of the foam and bubbles, the fizziness was on the mild side. The lemony tartness was solid but not deadly and the booberry was really nice. Lemon and booberry lingered on the finish before the latter faded to be replaced by a dash of hops. The tartness joined those hops to make for a really nice dry ending. My thirst was quenched.

As something cold on a hot day, Booberry Blonde works well. But letting it warm up to cellar temp is where it really shines as the booberry flavor becomes more prominent yet the tartness never attempts to overpower it. Just a great balance of fruit flavors and the perfect level of sour for my taste.

Junk food pairing: Booberry Blonde is all about subtlety and restraint and so mote it be with your food pairing. Keep the local theme going with some potato flavored potato chips from the Broad Ripple Chip Co., made just a bit southwest of Four Day Ray.

The Brew of Dr. Moreau: Orange You Glad? by MobCraft Beer

It's been a while since I've even tasted a beer by MobCraft. The Madison brewery is famous for crowdsourcing recipe ideas that often times transgress more style boundaries than Lady Gaga and involve so many herbs, spices, nuts, twigs, berries, and fruits that Rheinheitsgebot proponents are sent into apoplectic fits by merely contemplating the existence of such beers. I've had some MobCraft brews that I thought were almost, but not quite, entirely unlike beer. Others have been quite tasty. They say that absence makes the liver heart grow fonder so I was rather keen on trying some MobCraft after a hiatus.

Orange You Glad? won the vote back in February of this year and, I presume, was released in the spring. Described on the label as a "sour hefeweizen", it is really a Moreauvian concoction with a gose having been grafted onto a hefeweizen that is the half-sibling of a San Pellegrino. Its original name was apparently "Orange You Glad You Weren't Beat Up By a Banana?" with the orange on the label giving that right hook to a banana. The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, the federal folks that approve beer labels, nixed the initial one so the beer was rechristened and the banana was replaced by a door (?!) - kind of like how Stanley Kubrick CGI'd a bunch of shadowy voyeurs into the big orgy scene in Eyes Wide Shut.

Orange You Glad? pours a very cloudy yellow. There were even some bits of sediment floating around in my glass. I'm not sure what they were but I have lived to tell the tale so, whatever they may have been, deleterious to one's health they were not. I got a goodly sized white head that looked like it belonged to a glass of 7-Up. The bubbles were large and POOF! Gone in a few seconds. There were also lots of bubbles in the beer itself going upwards and onwards.

On the nose I caught a moderate amount of lemony sour from the lactic acid bacteria, a lovely bit of blood orange fragrance, and some doughy/honey malt sweetness. On my first sip my tongue was accosted by the carbonation. It then latched onto a mild lemony tartness from the lacto and wheat. Faint but still discernable were orange zest, coriander, and some of the trademark hefeweizen esters that taste like banana. It was light and refreshing but merely passable with the carbonation almost overpowering the other flavors, none of which was particularly prominent.

I discovered that the secret here is to let the beer warm up a bit. This did not take too long in the 85° heat, I can assure you. It was like drinking a whole different beer. The carbonation struggled against the other flavors that had a newfound potency. Most pronounced was the revivified lactic sour which took on mouth puckering proportions. The fruity esters took their rightful place near the top of the flavor heap with the orange zest receiving a boost as well. Perhaps most tasteful to me was that the coriander went from being barely discernible to glaringly obvious. I enjoy coriander very much and thought it was in harmony here with the sourness and fruity flavors.

The beer finished dry with the sour trailing off leaving a slight blood orange tartness behind to meld with some mild Noble hop spiciness. Considering that the beer's head disappeared in no time flat, I was unsurprised that my glass was left ohne Schaumhaftvermoegen. Perhaps citric acid inhibits protein foam building. Or some such thing.

Once Orange You Glad? warms up a bit and reaches beerlibrium, it is a light, refreshing (5.4% A.B.V.) blend of fruity flavors complemented by sour and some spice. It's just a really nice mix. I do wish that I was able to taste the grains more, however. The emphasis here is clearly not on the malt but I do think it would have benefitted from a bit more of a bready base. Still, this was a rather tasty brew.

Junk food pairing: Orange You Glad? has a lot going on. Ergo you are going to want a junk food that is up to the test. I recommend some Cheez-It Extra Toasty crackers smothered in Sharp Cheddar Easy Cheese. I love the surplus Maillard reaction toasty goodness of the crackers and you get extra processed cheese food product to pierce the cornucopia of flavors in the beer.