Wild Beer Co: Toccalmatto: Indigo Child ( England: Sour Ale: 8% ABV)
Visual: Hazy pale purple, or, ok indigo if you insist. A thin greyed head.
Nose: Floral. Pepper. Tart yet musky. Petals.
Body: Tart blackberry and black cherry. Sherbety yet acidic. tart cider apples. Oatmeal biscuits middle. Lemon touched. Palma violets. Floral.
Finish: Shortbread. Dried berries. Tart apples. Lemon curd.
Conclusion: Purple beer. Sure, why not? This is a tart, refreshing beer, using what seems to be wild beers speciality – A call to lambic lemon freshness, tart cider apples, infused with odd ingredients, and made just slightly rustic in a not quite saison way.
In this case the odd ingredients bring a mix of floral and dark berries. Very odd considering it seems gooseberries were what they actually used, but bear with me here. It is almost like drinking a black berry infused potpourri.
You know, I have to stop doing descriptions of decent drinks that make them sound horrid. This isn’t horrid. It is actually very nice.
It also possibly the oddest drink I have had in the last, well to be totally honest last two days. I drink a lot of odd beers, ok? It is still very odd. It really does taste quite lambic like, like a really reigned in cassis lambic. The weirder part is that floral touch floating around, it is hard to pin down, I get the imagery of petals floating on the tongue – but that isn’t really what it taste like. Thankfully. It is quite acidic on the way out, which makes it a bit too harsh on swallow, but generally it is very easy going for an 8% beer.
I like it -ok, the floweriness is not what I would call a traditional quality beer styling, but there is something with how it manages to deliver a quality base sour beer that makes it a familiar enough expression that you are fascinated rather than repelled by the oddities. It is a tad harsh at points, and there is a lot that is hard to place, but apart from that it is a lovely black cherry tasting, apparently made with gooseberry, beer.
Background: The Rainbow Collaboration – seven UK brewers, teamed up with seven world brewers – each assigned a color for their beer. In this case Indigo. Apparently Indigo Child is a term for children with indigo auras who have special powers. Or as I call it – complete bullshit. Still a nice term for a beer. Anyway, this is a gooseberry sour made with flowers and Somerset yeast. This was picked up from Independent Spirit, my local purveyor of booze in exchange for goods and or services.