Craftsman Sour Lavender

Super floral lavender aroma. Flavor is more lavender with a nice sour flavor. Very unique and interesting. Very floral. Gold in color.

On tap at the stone 11th. This beer has an outstanding aroma. The flavor backs it up with unique floral bitterness. great beer

Sampled during the First Annual Stone Sour Fest. A big suprise here. Almost clear golden yellow with big white head. Sweet lavender on the aroma. A little soapy on the flavor. Flavor is very lavender. Soapy, but not a bad soapy. Maybe not really soapy. Maybe I just think of soap when I think of lavender. I am really suprised that this actually makes a good beer. Pretty yummy.

Sampled at the 1st annual Stone Sour Festival 2007. Very intoxicating smells of lavender and flowers. Nice perfume taste but not in a bad way. Interesting and kudos for trying Lavender.

Sampled at Stone’s Sour Festival, July 2007. Huge lavender nose, like being buried head dead in a field of sweet flowers. The aroma was simply intoxicating, although I didn’t think the flavor quite matched up. The beer was nicely sour, but the floral notes lingered on the tongue a little bit too much. Still a very interesting, well crafted beer.

Draft-15th and final brew of Stone 1st Annual Sour Festival, July 22nd 2007. Shared this cool day very mellow day with bikesandbeer, wetherel, westsidethreat, padrefan, fordest, denverlogan and many others. People warned me that the taste of this beer really sticks in your mouth and screws up your palate so I saved this for last, wise choice. Pours yellow with no head. Aroma is captivating and amazing it smells so much like lavender its pretty crazy. Problem is the nose portends a beer that tastes like flowers and I thought it was kind of gross. Kevin(Bikesandbeer) liked it more and I’m guessing this revolves around our differing opinions on Gin.

Sampled on tap at the First Annual Stone Sour Fest, July 2007
The beer sits in my glass with a clear, full gold color and is topped by a wispy, thin white head (a pretty typical lame draught head). An interesting spicy aroma wafts from the glass; it is a mix of floral notes, some clove, something like cardamom among other things (none of which I would necessarily peg as Lavender like, it makes me wonder that all of these notes did come from the named spice). The spiciness is the dominant part of the aroma, in fact the only other note I can perhaps smell is a soft sweetness.

The beer is dry tasting, and definitely tart up front. The finish is where the lavender takes hold; the beer is not nearly as spicy as the aroma would have suggested, but in the flavor it is much more characterized as being derived from lavender. Overall the sourness is fairly soft; it is a mix of lactic and citric acid flavors, with the lactic being the dominant note. The beer is quite crisp and easy drinking; this is contributed by a perceived low final gravity and of course the sourness really helps with this as well. I really like the level of lavender in the flavor, it really seems to be at a perfect, yet distinctly noticeable level.

The spice driven aroma is quite interesting, I still can’t believe it is the Lavender driving the aromatics; it is almost to aromatic at times. Really this is an intriguing beer, certainly not the best at this fest, but it was just about the most talked about beer because it was so distinct and interesting.

Gold, small head; huge lavender aroma. Lemon citrus flavor but not too sour. Quite smooth, refreshing and fun. Numerous beer geeks claimed this to be their favorite beer at the July 22nd Stone Sour beer fest. Brewer Mark said this is their Saison that with time became sour. It was very reminiscent of the Avery 12th Anniversary Saison.