Tag Archives: grape escape

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Avery Recolte Sauvage, Oscar Wilde Ale, It is Tart; but Sassier

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Avery keeps rolling out these batches of tiny, super-esoteric batches of beer that people rate extremely highly and I feel like that fat kid pressing his face to the bakery window, just looming on the sweet treats foreboding inside. Finally a friend hooked me up and I gave some Kern River goodness and both parties had tasted the rockies, respectively. This is a beer aged with Cabernet Sauvignon Grapes and then aged in Cabernet Sauvignon barrels. Basically…wine.

An immature palate wanders into the world of wine reviews...


Avery, Recolte Sauvage, Barrel Aged Wild Ale, 11% abv

A: This seriously looks exactly like Juicy Juice. Just straight up grape juice from concentrate. I guess I could make a parallel to some Merlots but really, it looks like a deep purple, no maltiness or carbination, just juice through and through, like Tupac.

There seems to be a bit of a scheme going on here to dupe the beer consumer. Maybe I am the only one.

S: The waft is of a tannic astringency, it goes to the black cherry, then dark grape varietal and lands on an acetyl tartness at the end. It reminds me of a Consecration whose balls have been pressed fully to the wall. If you prefer your testicles wall-mounted, I have a beer for you.

T: Looks like a duck, smells like a duck, wait for it. . .tastes exactly like wine. like a beer that was made with grapes, very little malt and then aged in wine barrels without yeast. Seriously, this is basically a wine with a mild bread profile. I don’t like being tricked into being a mediocre 30 something talking about Nurse Jackie episodes. This shit went Cougartown really quickly. It has a huge acerbic finish not in the cool “oh like a Cantillon St. Lamvinus?” no, like drinking a straight up glass of Kendall Jackson Cab. I look at my one time friend, the beer looking all entreating, tricking me with its vinous foul play.

Above: one of the best RPG's of all time, if you ask me to list the best wines ever, I am at a loss unless Sephiroth is involved.

M: Have you ever tasted Cabernet Sauvignon? Well, shake it up a bit to gain some bubbles and there you go. This is literally 80% wine and 20% hateful potation. The entire glass has a deep violet hue, there’s no lacing, I am way out of my territory here and I fear wineblogs are closing in, airlock is opening, if anyone reads this space station message, just tell them, I have always hated wine. . .in every…way…

D: Well again, this is determined by the nature of your very existence. I feel like I am trapped at an educational mixer with the traditional red wines, those chuckles and heel rocking with the effusive gestures. It is a perpetual “cool” PTA meeting with the notes of tannins that dry a bit and I COULD drink a lot of this, but moreover, I dont want to. It isn’t because it is bad, far from this, it is well executed but…I have the palate of a 21 year old boy. If you give me nice things I will bury them and spike stock certificates in the ground and eat Kraft Macaroni. It is my own shortcoming, not this beer’s.

Ultimately, I have ran out of arguments against wine so I shelter myself with beer to appear more intellectual. This has never happened before.

Narrative: Janice Roth was a recent divorcee, proud in demeanor, light in expression lines, stern in demeanor. Her 6 year-old minx did not trouble her much and she still served respectfully within InGeniDyneDCorp. as a regional semi-vice-personnel overseeing director. A title she held in cold reverence. Janitors would tip their caps in an almost anachronistic reverence of Mrs. Roth and as she piled into her comfy leather highbacked chair she exhaled sharply. “Janey Janey, when did it come to this?” she ruminated to herself as she operated the corkscrew within her desk to open a Chateau Margeaux, not the ’95 the ’96. She sipped the tonic judiciously and looked out the window ingratiatingly upon the foot traffic below. “The man you loved ran away, you have two beautiful girls who adore you, but something feels so wrong-” she knocked the bottle over and watched the crimson liquid gather in stern liquid rivulets. The sum value of her being was collected in this trivial libation. She had been reduced to episodes of the Bachelor and listening to Jason Mraz mixtapes. This was her inherent value after years and years of sacrifice. And then- she gets hit in the crotch or takes a pie in the face to still make this a comedy narrative, right? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT? WELL TOO BAD SAD DIVORCEE STORY IS TODAY’S NARRATIVE.

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Cascade Sang Royal, In Oregon they Call Sours a Royale With Cheese, They Have the Metric System.

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When I first started drinking sours, I would go fuck around and try those $20 normal Cascade sours, and they would beat my ass mercilessly. I landed this beer to show it I’m not afraid of it. It’s like Pennywise the Clown, except I’m getting drunk in California instead of Maine. Holy mixed metaphors.

Another gem from Oregon's artisan beer scene. WHERE THEY BE GETTING ALL THE CHERRIES FROM THO.

Cascade Sang Royal, 9.35% abv, Wild Ale

I can’t hype this beer anymore than saying it is a pretty rare sour and here’s what the bottle has to say about itself, unabashedly: “Sang Royal is a big NW Style Sour Red Ale that spends over six months of lactic fermentation and aging in oak wine barrels. Sang Royal is from select stock that is matured an additional six months in Port barrels and refermented on Bing Cherries.” Alright, let’s do this shit.

A: The appearance is a deep murky ruby that looks like a burnt brick color that barely gives up the ruby when you put some light on it. Give a guy some ruby, ya know? It’s got an eggwhite frothy head with microbubbles that dont go anywhere, they just post up in the chill zone and look all light maroon.

When I knew that there was a box with 4 of these gems coming to my house, I looked like this all week, watching for the Fedex man.

S: You get a sour fuji apple smell, tart candy, sour ropes, maraschino cherry, and sour warhead smells. This has a great smell to it and doesn’t introduce a wide bevy of funk to the olfactory aspects. The OLFACTORY IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS. If you agitate it, much like a Django Reinhardt concert, things get mildly funky.

T: This has a huge tart bite at the outset that reminds me of those skittles that used to be covered in sugar and road salt. It pans away to a wide shot of two cherries, both tart to the core acrimoniously discussing the ongoings of the plum factory. Starwipe to the headmaster grape who oversees the entire operation and roll the credits. This isn’t as sour as the lambic and crazy geuze painstrippers overseas but it is a great sour with tons of stone fruit and juiciness to it to compliment the initial sour shock that it presents. It’s like that movie KIDS, where you think it’s just gonna be overwhelming and shock footage but then they reel you in, except this beer doesn’t rape a teenage girl at the end. Oh, spoiler alert.

This beer is a hybrid of something badass and something dirty, but the result is a sick cherry massacre.

M: The mouthfeel is dry, as you can expect from something this juicy and tart, the old gumline deconstruction sets to work hard with those juicy juice notes drilling your soft enamel like pilsbury crescent rolls. AND YOU NEVER GET ENAMEL BACK.

D: This beer becomes more drinkable as it warms because the cherries finally get their shit together and stop letting sour just hit on their chicks and they mobilize an offensive. I could put away a bottle of this, but then the pesky lambic tum tum sets in and you get the bubbleguts due to the crazy acidity so I GUESS you should share this one. For the haters.

A couple bottles of this and I'd be communicating with a bell asking for more sour cherry potations.

Narrative: The broken Stairclimber took on a life of its own at this Winnipeg gym. Carl Delgado sat 10 meters away and just enjoyed the scene, shrewdly sipping his cherry smoothie, enjoying the deeply puckering acidity boosts that he added to it. “So obviously Kaitlyne is THREATENED BY ME-” a frail minx of 19 years prattled on into her iPhone while blindly ascending onto the 5 foot high platform. She was promptly served a platter of shit and swiftly caressed the sweet embrace of the collapsed stairs and recounted the potential for legal action to her equally vapid phone counterpart. Carl nodded and smiled, this was better than the entire CBS lineup. With this endless spring of dark, sour levity, how would he move on to other pursuits? He could watch college undergrads simply fall down all day long. A sip of sour cherry smoothie was all he needed to garner contentment in his soul.