Allagash Inoculator

Formerly brewed at Allagash Brewing Company
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Portland, Maine USA

Draft at Uber. Cloudy burnished copper body, plenty of tightly bubbled head atop. Big dry sour cherry nose, a little bit of lightly sour funk shining through there as well. There’s plenty of body up front and a nice bold attack; you get lightly sour cherries, barrel-stave-alicious french oak, white wine, and an antique whisper of caramel malt echoing through the years. Not much hop character around the back end, and it’s a back end that doesn’t have much of anything else, either...the body hollows out, the finish vanishes in a puff or cherry blossom, and the mid palate evaporates along with it. This is a tasty and almost refreshing beer, and a successful experiment. Not sure how often I’d bother to drink it if they made it all the time, though.

allright, now I get to put in my $0.02 and do a "make it", because this is a killer brew! on tap at the blind tiger re-opening, the first beer I had. cloudy and hazy amber gold color, tall pillowy off-white head. aroma is sour like a lambic, funky & yeasty, with sour cherry too. very satisfying brett aroma, can smell from afar. flavor is lightly sweet malt like a fair tripel, then light berry, then dry white wine. more dryish white wine finish. fahreakin awesome!!

On tap at blind tiger. Wow! Fantastic brew. Super yeasty aroma with tart cherries and other fruits. Good complexity though I didn’t take notes so i can’t remember specifics. Purely a delight for the nose. Flavor is bready, sourdough cherry with gorgeous oak. I wish I could sit down with this one in my living room. I pray they’ll bottle this.

On tap at the Blind Tiger. Hazy amber in color with a large off white head. Aroma is very complex, funky and sour, with alot of brett, fruit, got apples, and plums/cherries. Taste is awesome, alot of brett, tart fruit, light horseblanket funk, oak, and light malts. Clean and tart finish. This blew me away.

Tap at Blind Tiger. Hazy golden in color with a nice fluffy white head. Sour fruity aroma. Grapes, brett and cherry notes. Sour cherry and very funky barnyard flavor. Cherries and apples . Lots of cherries come through in the flavor of this beer. Tart and sweet. Clean finish. Wow. Complex beer. Very good.

Tap at Blind Tiger: Nice hazy golden pour with a fluffy and dense white head. Extremely complex aroma. Sour and fruity. I picked up on apples & cinnamon, grapes (white wine suggestions), cherries and brett. The flavor offers amazing depth as well. Great sour fruity notes all over. Tart black cherries, green grapes, brett. The oak solidifies the flavor with a slightly bourbon-like boozeyness The sweet notes from the oak even the tartness out perfectly. Has a surprisingly clean finish. An outstanding and quaffable Ale with vast complexity.

Update from Blind Tiger. Has aged better since a couple months ago at EBF. SOmehow in a short period of time, this has gotten better. Either that, or my palate was more fresh when I had it last night. Awesome stuff. Even more sour than I remember. EBF. This stuff was intense. Almost every kind of bug going on in this one. Pours a muddled hazy deep yellow/almost orange with a thin lasting white head- kinda looked like a gueze. Aroma is tart and sour with some citric and lacitc acids, cherry must and skin, tons of funk and farmhouse crap coming through. Lots of funk and farmhouse in the flavor with a lively malt rpofile- turned funky of course, with some cherry pie, astringent cherry pit, light toasted almonds, lemon peel tartness and a nice refreshing tart finish. Damn smooth.

Draught at EBF 07. Very cloudy yellow body with a long-lasting off-white head. Aroma was wild, very wild, in a blind test I would have guessed some kind of lambic-fruit. Taste was a cross between a lemony tripel and a fruity lambic. The added cherries didn’t overtake the beer but the barrel character really showed-up. Wild active yeast, very oaky, all kinds of tropical fruits, rather strong sourness and lemony tartness. Lively carbonation. The Allagash Tripel basis was barely recognizable. Somehow that barrel aging with cherries totally mutated the yeast character. Wicked wicked beer. Boston’s EBF was probably the wrong venue for that kind of beer with its crowd mainly looking for over-the-top IIPAs and Super Imperial Barley Wines. My mother and my school principal were right, getting inoculated is good for me.