Deschutes Firewood

A: Oak, cherry, cinnamon, coriander, rose hips and thyme.

Ap: Attractive cloudy, deep auburn caramel color with no head to speak of.

F: Begins with massive amounts of spices and pungent oak. Holy crap does this beer have a lot of flavor! Deep round cherry notes blare loudly followed suite by buttery yogurt flavors. The brett is strong in this one. Copious amounts of sage add a crazy amount of even more jam packed flavor. The oak and sourness is so pungent, it scratches the throat and seizes the nasal cavity. Finishes with subtle pinot flavors, good amount of brett and healthy bitterness.

P: Medium body, soft and smooth.

O: WHOA. This beer is brimming with flavor. Totally memorable.

Sampled during the First Annual Stone Sour Fest. Hazy copper color with a dissapating head. Sour acidic cherry aromas. Acidic flavor is more cherry. It is a little sweet on the flavor than on the aromas. Berry flavor on the finish. Very very tasty

Sampled on tap at the First Annual Stone Sour Fest, July 2007
This beer is a full amber color and is topped by a wispy, tan, ring of a head. The aroma is quite fruity with solid notes of berries (definitely leans quite strongly towards blackberries), currants and some oak-character that has a light touch.

The beer has a fullish body to it and was a bit fuller than I was expecting. The flavor is definitely tart and berry like, it cuts through my palate, despite not being overly sour. There is some sort of chewy fruit-skin like flavor; something like cherry skins, blackberry skins; it definitely gives this an austere, slightly tannic finish that is almost wood like in its concentrated fruit skin character (my guess is that the oak has something to do with this as well). This beer is nicely tart; it leans towards a lactic & fruity acidity. This beer is quite fruity, without being sweet & somehow this accents the tartness.

It is surprising how much the pinot grapes have added to the overall fruit notes found in this beer. This beer actually almost has more fruit character than sour funk, but that may be my sour craving preferences talking. The body has a surprising fullness to it that, again, must have been influenced by the barrel aging. This is quite nice, and I was not expecting anything nearly this good.

On tap at Stone. Deep brown with a thick creamy white head. Floral eucalyptus aroma. Initial sweet tangy berry taste transitioning to a wonderfull tea like taste, intense lemon sourness, mint and tobacco taste through out, and a dry acidic finish.

Sampled at the 1st annual Stone Sour Festival 2007. Another hit from Deschutes. This was in my top 3 of the day. The barrel aging done on this one made this beer fantastic.

Draft at Stone. Beer aged in wine barrels are great. This one aged in a Pinot Barrel could only get better. Aroma of spice, leather and grape skins. Nice malt background with a nuttiness in the finish (autolysis, barrel fermented?). Latic sour and tanin add to the finish. The first and last taste of the day, both great. Brewers, bottle this for aging please! Wish I had a hunk of aged Gouda with the salt crystals inside.

Draft-1st 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. Poured brown with some bubbles on top. Aroma is funky with a woody sugary vinous nose. The taste is sour and potent with a big kick to the throat, reminiscent of both La Folie and Rodenbach Grand Cru. Overall this was really really pretty fantastic. I’d say this ranks in the top 5 overall for all sours I’ve had.

At the Stone Sour fest. Cloudy brown with minimum head. Rich and funky with sour wood and wine aroma and taste. Overall nicely balanced for a funky beer and many at the fest liked this a lot. I went back for seconds! Significant carbonation, refreshing tropical fruit sour notes, a little sweet with a pleasant finish.