The Best Things We Drank: August 21 - 27

Over the weekend we had friends over to help us break in our new digs and being that our friends tend to be beer geeks, generous beer geeks, many of them showed up with bottles of very delicious, often rare beers. Some of them have yet to be opened but others we enjoyed that night and as expected they were fantastic.

Dionysus Currantly Noir with Vanilla #02 - The first beer we've had from this two year old Bakersfield, CA brewery was an incredible introduction to them. A golden sour ale aged six months in Pinot Noir French oak barrels with black currants and vanilla, it has just the exact right amount of sourness for us. 

The Commons Fishing With Hallet - Listed as a Belgian Strong Dark Ale, on the surface it wouldn't appear to be a beer that would trip our trigger. However, being brewed by The Commons increases the chance that we'll like it and sealing the deal is that the amount of sour character is sufficient to subdue any Belgian characteristics that in other instances might turn us off.

Bruery Terreux Frucht: Lemon & Cherry - The level of sour, especially from the lemon zest, may be a bit much for some but we really enjoyed the combination of lemon and tart cherries in this Berliner Weisse-style sour. Apparently it is the first beer in their Frucht series and we'll be looking forward to seeing what this subsidiary of The Bruery turns out in the future.

Firestone Walker Krieky Bones - Picked up by Mag, it starts with a tart cherry aroma and follows with the best tart cherry cobbler flavor we've ever run across. It was brewed to celebrate David Walker's 50th birthday and is a Flanders Red style beer that was aged for eight months in a French oak foeder with sour cherries that allowed for a secondary fermentation. We suspect that the Vienna malt used is what gave us the feeling of cobbler.

Image courtesy of Founders since ours didn't properly show the awesome can.

The lone beer to make this week's list that was not consumed at our party was enjoyed earlier in the week at The BeerMongers. Cans of Founders Green Zebra sport fun, bright artwork and inside is a take on a gose.

This one won't be for everyone but we enjoyed the heck out of the flavor that is reminiscent of watermelon Jolly Ranchers with just a touch of salt, a primary component setting this style of sour beer apart from others. Considering how many bad (like REALLY bad) watermelon beers we've had this is yet a further achievement. A "limited" beer, according to their website, it's definitely worth grabbing a can before summer transitions into fall. As a bonus, the beer was brewed to benefit ArtPrize, a non-profit international art competition in Grand Rapids, MI. Drink good, do good.