Alright before we jump right back into the fray with another brewery review, might as well address this stone fruit prodigy that people have been mentioning with regularity on the trade boards. The Smog City barrel program seemingly has blind sided consumers and top tier tickers alike with monthly releases spitting hot rounds, dropping mad 16s on the South Bay. Even crusty kids with Pennywise shirts are peeping the BAL game.

So what’s the deal with this shit? OH GREAT YET ANOTHER STONEFRUIT SOURED BLONDE WOW SUCH ORIGINAL MANY INSPIRE. I thought the same thing and furrowed my brow, knowing that hard as nails lineage it would need to compete with: Persica, Fen Tao, La Fosse, Veritas 15, Fuzzy, the list goes on and fucking on.  Even making a 4.5% AWA with peaches and apricots already puts a red dot on a brewer’s head like Rodman.

Let’s go through the standard checklist that gets level 2 cicerones tumescent:

– Stonefruit

– 2000 bottle release

– brewery only

And then they need to clean the trub from those And1 basketball shorts because that’s all it takes these days. Except this beer is actually good, it’s really fucking tasty.

The pour looks a touch watery but leaves subtle cling before that carb crackles off and belies that potentially acidic affair waiting underneathe.  It looks clean and radiant, glowing like a Super Mario Galaxy Star.

The nose is intense pithy apricot flesh, cut nectarine, less peach and more farmers market clementines and satsuma almost.  The bouquet seems so representative of the fruits in question is feels supra-real, like when that yellow smelling marker smelled more like lemons than real lemons do.  This goes over the top and the acidity isn’t really anywhere to be found.  There isn’t much brett C or musky funk interplay and this is one of those “squeaky clean” sours that boost crushability in lieu of cheesy gristiness.

The taste is endlessly balanced, a fruit profile that never becomes cloying or artificial.  It has moderate acidity but you could easily crush a 500ml without a second thought. There is a touch of drying along the gumline but it never feels like they are learning on the fruit as a crutch.  With some fruited wilds, you toss 2 lbs per gallon of anything and YOU WIN THE GAME THIS TASTES LIKE FRUIT, but that isn’t the case here.  The fruit tannins serve to compliment rather than outshine the delicate drinkability of this beer, it’s like an ultra competent Steve Buscemi performance that makes everyone else appear even better as a whole.

A complaint that perhaps isn’t even a valid gripe is that it is TOO easy to drink and unless you actively contemplate this beer, it will be gone.  One phone call from your ex wife pestering you about DID YOU BORROW MY STEPLADDER and boom the entire beer is gone. THANKS A LOT, JANET, YOU STOLE YET ANOTHER THING FROM MY LIFE.  It isn’t insubstantial like some of the Bu’s, and it isn’t over the top like some nameless Floridian offerings, it his this perfect inner wall of satisfaction you want to rock upon until you crack your pit and juice it hard.

WAIT WUT.

In sum, yet another fucking great beer without a clear parallel, that is absolutely worth putting in and around your face.