And so why does this passenger think that way? The other
night they drank a can of Chorlton’s Amarillo Sour, followed by Cloudwater’s
Vic’s Secret Tart IPA, both beers going down as easily as a soft drink, despite
their relative alcoholic strengths of 5.5% and 7.3%. They were, I was told by
this passenger, juicy and restrained in their sweetness, while the tartness was
unbridled in its friendliness and sense of wonder, like the face of a child,
eyes closed, slyly smiling, as it lifts its face to a warm sun. They were both
beautiful beers, of which the passenger said ‘I could drink deeply’. They were
also both what are generally called sours,
Similar thoughts had whisked over me with the soft petulance
of a feather duster a couple of weeks ago whilst giving a talk at a beer
conference in Cusco, Peru, on the state of sour beer in the UK — within the
audience of brewers, both newly pro and stay-at-homers, there was a real
interest in sour beers, with several putting their hands up when I asked who
was making a sour. A few days before I’d also filed a piece on sours for Imbibe
magazine, making the point that sours had the ability to appeal to those who
had always said that they didn’t like beer, ie wine drinkers who like their
acidity, of which there is plenty within a sour beer.
Sours (or wild beers or acidic beers, or whatever you want
to call them), when they work are exemplary in the way they both tease and
trounce the palate with their visions of a beer beyond what we know as beer.
They have the ability to shush the palate and to rush their way along the
gustatory highway to deliver refreshment and also compress sensations of
acidity, juiciness, sprightliness, dryness, saltiness, tartness and a piquant
bitterness all in one. And because they have the ability to introduce those who
say they dislike beer they are the new alco-pops, but on the other hand I
hardly think Amarillo Sour is the new WKD. But you never know.
I'm one of those boys lifting my face to the sun with sour beers. But when I drink a trad malt-led bitter I'm often taken back to childhood on the sweetness of the malt too. It's a bit like sugared ReadyBrek.
ReplyDeleteYou’ve reminded me of a Brakspears Bitter I had in July 1989, in a small pub in the Vale of the White Horse, prior to a friend’s wedding in the church in the village, the beer shone and also glowered with its intention to make me happy. I almost bunked off and carried on boozing.
DeleteI haven't 'got' sours yet & still find them an ordeal; I dare say it'll happen.
ReplyDeleteIs diesel (lager & coke) a thing in this country? I've only ever seen it in Germany, and (former) East Germany at that.
Phil no one has to get anything; I don’t enjoy pumpkin beers. Diesels are not — as far as I know — a thing in the UK, but it’s a sweetened beer that I felt lke mentioned.
ReplyDelete