It was just a few days ago that I said weird beer was coming, and lo and behold, Central City has unveiled the launch of their first barrel aged sour beer, making them the first brewery to unveil a sour for 2016.
Central City’s Sour Brown I (9.2% ABV) is a traditional Belgian style sour brown ale aged for two years in a combination of Cabernet Sauvignon oak barrels and French oak foeders. The brewery lists its flavour as malty sweet with a balanced acidic finish with barnyard hay notes.
“We decided on a sour beer program when this brewery was first designed because we feel that sour beer is a relevant style for a craft brewery,” said Gary Lohin, Central City’s Brewmaster. “We decided to use the Belgian method of souring the beers since it is the birthplace of this style, and used various yeast cultures to produce the unique and notable flavours, and aged them for two years in the Cabernet Sauvignon oak barrels and French oak foeders. The result is a complex flavour that balances the sour notes with a melodic malty character.”
Central City has been working on this for quite some time, so they are of course very excited to be releasing this to the public. As part of the release, they are hosting a launch party at the Central City Brew Pub on January 14, January 21 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Anyone remotely interested in sour beer should swing by, as I guarantee this is the first of many coming down the pipe this year.
Expect this to be a very limited release.
edit: the date was changed to a week afterwards due to scheduling issues with Central City.
Ale/Sessions 