Captain Lawrence Cuvee de Castleton

Batch 2, via trade with JoeMayo on BA. Pours a murky yellow- gold color, capped with a small off-white head and effervescent body. Aroma is musty and lactic, with notes of white grape, lemon, oak and some wild yeast. Flavor is as complex as the aroma, with white grape, lemongrass, citrus, wild yeast, and some oak. Long, moderately tart finish. It’s not as lactic as some other sours, adding to its drinkability. I had this with a variety of cheeses, and it nicely complimented nearly all of them. The active carbonation seemed to cleat the palate. This is a beautiful beer; I need to get more!

Bottle shared with emagee’s 1,000th rating. Thanks, Ethan! Light, bright golden color. Very slightly hazy. Nose of muscadine, lemony-citrus, lemongrass, apricots, peaches, floral notes, and a tart yeastiness. More bready/yeasty on the palate than expected, losing some of the fruit tartness, but still very good with a dry crisp finish. Delicious.

Shared by that dude below, on his 1,000 rating. Thanks, Ethan! Smells a bit like finger? Oh wait, that’s the wrong rating. The pour reminded me almost of a gueze, insofar as it was much more bright and clear than expected. Champagne-like carb for sure, with a lovely head. Dry and oaky aroma comes across initially, quite inviting. As you get into the beer, the muscat grapes are everywhere, not in an overpowering sense at all, but in a nicely suffused, well integrated sense. Light floral notes in there to balance things out, and it’s got a deliciously dry finish too. Very fine, and big thanks again to Finger Man.

Thanks to hophead75 for this one. Andrew graciously traded me one of his two bottles for my 1000’th rating. Here goes. Pours a very bright clear pale yellow. Has very large carbonation and sits effervescent in the glass, very champagne like. The head was kind of profuse but subsided very quickly and very loud. The nose was very prominent with white muscat grapes (and hand), a nice tart fruitiness that isn’t overly prominent, very yeasty and a soft oakiness. The flavor is very vinous, spicy oak, yeasty, the tart/sour character isn’t dominating and plays a nice complimentary role in the beer. The grapes and spices show also show well. Very lively and exciting mouthfeel, the carbonation is very tactile and the overall body of the beer does not disappoint either. Overall, this was a great sour and its individual aspects melded well rather than any one dominating. Just what I like in a sour, balanced complexity.

I hope nobody minds this placeholder rating for the purposes of the DD Top Ten list accuracy. l’ve got a real rating somewhere, and l’ll enter it one of these days, but for now l hope it’s enough to say that one of the bottles I had of this was one of my favorite beers of all time. Batch 1, because of its incredible tropical fruit medley. Batch 2 unfortunately doesn’t come close, for me. Yet.