Cascade Apricot Ale

Brewed by Cascade Brewing @ Raccoon Lodge
Style: Sour Ale
Portland, Oregon USA

750 mL bottle (2008 vintage cork and caged, tasted on 11/25/09). Served at 48 deg. Pours a light clear orange/golden. Huge bubbly white head that fades quickly. Aroma of peach and citrus, touch of some floral hops and vanilla bread. Incredibly dry taste, with very little residual sugar. Just a touch of sweetness with a belgian yeast flavor, then a pleasant mild sourness, but not as tart as expected. Drinks incredibly well and I cannot believe this is 9% (as labeled on bottle) for such a nice light bodied brew. Yet another fantastic beer from Cascade.

25 oz bottle. Pours a slightly hazy orangish gold body with a small fizzy white head that retained as a thin covering after spewing a few ounces from the bottle. The nose is pretty great, bursting with ripe fresh apricots and a nice subtle funkiness and oak. Maybe a bit of a Sweet-tarts quality. The flavor isn’t quite as fruity, much more funk and Sour Ale than a fruit beer. The funkiest of the bunch from Cascade that I’ve had. Both sweet and sour, with the oak featuring prominently. Medium bodied, a little clingy on the back end, this could stand to be a bit drier. Nice fine prickly carbonation keeps things lively. I pretty much liked this one, it could be a bit more funked-up and drier, but it was really flavorful. Best apricot beer that I’ve ever come across if that counts for anything.

Pours deep clear amber into a snifter. Head quickly subsides, but is constantly regenerating. Sour apricot and oak aromas. Dry and crisp with sour apricot and summer pit fruit upfront. Turning to a tart and lasting oak finish.

Pours orange/copper with a very active and large foamy white head. There is a sour apricot and yeast aroma. The flavor is mostly apricot with some very nice oak characteristics. I could drink a lot of this.

Golden blonde color, rich head with good retention. Lots of delicious apricot in the flavor atop the sour. Soft prickly apricot skin texture. Incredibly juicy and fruity, and the authenticity of the apricots especially stands out. And did I mention it’s a kick ass sour ale?

Big thanks to riversideAK. Massive gusher, lost 1/3 of the bottle. Be prepared. Plenty of opportunity to enjoy the aroma while mopping this up, has good travel and duration, primarily creamy, cheesy, a sour cherry fruity tang to it. Also an off element that’s more moldy than anything else. Murky gold pour, very open fizzy white head, dissipates but leaves some lace. Flavor pleasantly dry on on the front, carbonic elements merge nicely with the overall tartness; then moving into a phase where the wild yeast cheese funk and caramel come into play, this gets a bit cloying, apricot floral notes emerge as the dominant flavor on the finish, nicely lively in carbonation all the way through. Bitterness straddles the line between pleasantly dry hopped and chemical.

Big thanks to RiversideAK for this. Huge nose of apricot....with a huge taste of apricot. Flavor is very good but the chalkiness is a bit odd and not expected. Good sour, but could be better.

Bottle with thanks to coyotehunter. Pours a light orange with a big head and aromas of apricot, lemon and wood smoke. Err... no, wait, that’s just the aromas if camping with stellar beer. Flavor is heavily apricoty with a slight sourness and a chalkiness and sweetness that are not anticipate and not very good.