Always keen to keep playing around with flavours, the folk from Lost Palms have brought us two sours done quite differently.
Everything Apple Cranberry Crumble Sour is a stylish drop that shines like rosé; pour it into a wine glass and raise a toast to refreshment. The smell wafting from the top of this liquid is a sugary decadence, like berries coated in sugar crystals. But this isn’t a pastry sour, and the flavour isn’t sugary; the brewery describes it as “a sour so crisp, it crunches,” and boy does it ever. It’s absolute apple and cranberry juice, but tastes like it was made with fruits that were just underripe so the sweetness is replaced with tartness. It’s light and breezy like a clean linen shirt.
Then we get to Rouge Awakening, which is a more complex piece that brings together two already complex beverages: a sour red ale modelled on a Flanders red and a hard kombucha from Ventura Brewing, Australia’s first craft alcoholic kombucha brewery.
Rouge Awakening’s rusty-brown hue throws off shimmers of ruby, and its honey mead character and dark plummy notes holds together the acidity that slices through the middle. The final product leans more towards Flanders red than kombucha, and it’s meant to: one of the things the kombucha brings is the dash of acetic acid that belongs in the flavour profile of a Flanders red (though would usually come about by other means), which presents as a splash of balsamic while being firmly anchored by a subtle earthy funk.
But the kombucha also brings some lighter aromatic notes: some tropical fruit, a little guava, and subtle florals. Join this with the suave crystal malts, the vibrant sourness, the smooth oak and the stern bitterness, and you’ll find there’s nothing rude or rough about this rouge rogue.
Mick Wüst
Published March 14, 2023 2023-03-14 00:00:00
