I'm on an eternal crusade to get them to rebrew Workman's Friend, as it was probably my favorite of the lineup. Gunga Galunga really grew on me when they dumped the last of the stash back in may. In fact, the bottles I had then were probably the best of all the pours I'd had up to that point. Then again, Im also the guy that wishes the Bruery would offer up more non BA stouts.
Hmm I had this on tap a few months ago, but haven't cracked one of my bottles yet. I was pretty impressed with it, and i am a pretty big sour fan. I think i'm going to have to open a bottle this weekend and revisit this.
I was actually going to start a post on why more people were not praising this beer when I saw this thread. I am a complete wild ale, sour, gueuze and lambic fan. While this is not a stereotypic "sour" it is a great example of a most drinkable and well made fruit beer. Now, if you don't like strawberries you're not going to like it. But, the same holds true for any fruit beer/gueuze/lambic! I think its very drinkable and very appealing - but, I like strawberries. I think it's a winner and I'm actually surprised that it's getting the criticism it is; but,...hey,... that's why there's different flavors - to each his/her own. And, this may be an exception to my new "general rule" about drinking beer fresh. This could be the bottle you want to try aging. I suspect that some of the fruit forward character will fade as with all fruit beer and some of the sweet strawberry will fade and become more discreet.
Clearly I missed out on the memo where beer drinkers everywhere were tasting band-aids to come up with a new reference point in describing beer.
Clearly. If you had, you know that it's a widely accepted term and descriptor (see bjcp) of undesireable phenolic tones / tastes in beer... also known as medicinal, plastic, adhesive or disinfectant. Don't knock other people's effort to describe a beers virtues and deficiencies, with detailed explanations, just because your unaware.
come over and I can give you a GF treasure Chest. Last time I had it, it had an overwhelming band-aide taste...though the last time I cracked one was about 10-8 months ago
Kudos to you - it's hard for a BA to admit when they don't know something, especially when it's fairly common knowledge in the craft community. I recommend you read Palmer's guide to Off Flavors in beer; it will help you to become a more skilled taster. http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html
That was the one at the last Grape and Grain tasting, right? Good God that beer was spectacular. Right up there with Sour in the Rye with Kumquats on firkin at last year's Initiation Party.
This thread got me to open a bottle of Ichigo tonight. I still get a strong plastic/bandaid phenolic note but it isn't as strong as I remembered and once you get past it the strawberry jam character is quite nice.
It was a miss for me, and I'm a HS member, and buy lots of Bruery beers, since I love so many of them. Wasn't a fan of the flavor profile, and for the record I love strawberries but from my limited understand, strawberries can be a difficult fruit to work with, as in large quantities, the fruits acidic tartness can be overbearing, which for me, is mostly what I tasted from the two bottles I had bought and had. My palate was hoping for a touch more sweetness, and less phenolic acidic notes. All well, getting lots of Sour in the Rye will make up for it.
Ya, I just opened one recently and was disappointed to find that not only did it not improve, it seemed to have remarkably degraded. It tasted even more boozy harshly tannic than I remembered.
