Heavyweight Ch-Chuck

Formerly brewed at Heavyweight Brewing Company
Style: Sour Ale
Ocean Township, New Jersey USA

Bottle provided by and shared with tpkenned. Hazy and dirty copper in color with a sudsy tan head and lovely cascading lace. Aroma is, in a word, wonderful. Flemish sour thoughts abound. Brown sugar, cherries, chardonnay grapes, oak chips, brett and butterscotch. Delving into complexities, as I could sniff all night, we arrive at sweet, subtle bourbon dimensions underscoring the flavor. Some nutty, spicy toffee plays a celebrated symbiotic relationship with a sour funk component that pulls at the brett and grains of paradise heartstrings. Other attention to detail points out caramels alongside cherry cobbler – it’s that fresh, tart stuff, country style. Sweet, confident cushion and mildly souring on the palate. Gentle carbonation and beautifully balanced. Mulled pears transition a souring finish to a sweet orange toffee chew resonance. Very well done.

This has precisely the range of leathery, tannic, fruity and cheesy brett flavors that I crave. Very well made, with a slight flavor drop in the finish, this looks good (darker than expected), hold a wonderful head, is enhanced in the body (getting even gritty toward the end) and flavors (slightly more sour) by adding the yeast pour. A bit minerally like cherry stones. Delicious. Could be more sour, but this is restrained and even elegant. A great beer; thanks to EDA and willblack for bottles; folks, I need more.

Murky red-brown in color with a lacey head. Smell of sour cherries, then a bit of alchol. Nice mellow tangyness.

Thanks to paul for sending me this i was able to enjoy someing from a brewery that is no longer around. This beer was very merky and cider like with no head nor was there any laceing to it. The aroma was an intence fruit and sour apple with that funk that you would normaly get in a gueze, kind of barn yard like. As you drink it there was an intence bitterness which was nice with lots of apple and cherry followed by that salty funky gueze like flavor which lasted for a while. The palate was nice and strong and the salty apple flavor lasted for a while after the beer went down your throat. This is a very nice beer to casually drink with dinner.

For a while, I viewed Heavywieght as an above-average brewery with some solid offerings. However, after trying many of their OTOP beers (especially the saisons), I now place them as one of the top five most innovative brewers in the country, possibly the world. This beer just solidifies that opinion - for a long time, I didn’t even know what "brett" was, let alone know how to identify the flavors it produced - now that I know, I must say that the brett characteristics are really quite prominent, yet not overstated in this beer - the sour cherry flavors aren’t quite mouth-puckering enough to equate this with a true "sour ale," but it does lend a lambic-like quality - oak and vinous notes weave in and out - musty and very earthy - sourness drops out in the finish, leaving a touch of chocolate and spices, along with a flavor/mouthfeel that I can only describe as "milky" - this is one of the most interesting beers I’ve had in a long time - very subtle - take some time with this one before you judge it.

Delicious! I thought this was a barrel aged brown ale, but now that I know it has the cherries in it, I know why I liked it so much. Very hazy, light chestnut color. Bold, sour aroma, with notes of milk, cheese in the flavor. Sour but not unsmooth, and it leaves an interesting finish. Very drinkable.

What a treat from HW, barrel aged Chuck. These beauties are aged in a barrel for 6 months with sour cherries. What a difference over the original Chuck. The brett is tamed a bit by the barrel aging, the cherries while adding tartness take away a bit of the funkiness. Regular Chuck without a doubt is the champion of brett, almost like cheese in a bottle its so far out there. The mellowing from aging brings it back to earth. Tart up front, some of the funk working its way around, just starting to pucker but doesnt quite get there. Finish with mellow sour cherries just to remind you to fill up your glass again. Outstanding

12.11.05 750ml bottle, sampled from three different bottles so far. The stuff is a dingy brown honey color with a small and quickly fading beige head. Aroma is only a bit funked up with mild hay and horseblanket, rotty old shed floor, rotting fruits, sweet cherries and felled apples. Flavor is mild and completely mellowed from the original, super-bretty, Chuck (as Cornboy mentioned). The beer, now an intricate and brooding thing, hides behind a guise of simplicity. Wan bittering replaced coolly with subtle oak and cherry notes, the whole fruit, old and wrinkled. This is not the viscious afront of a venerable La Folie or even the more timid Panil Barriquee. This is as much dancing in afterthought as tempting the buds for a sequel. Dusty cobwebs list in cold autumn breezes, libertine earthtone of frosted and fallen fruits.
The beer could beer more complete, although it is wonderfully complex. The lack of a staunch malt constitution that was so expertly hidden behind sweet brett in the original is now exposed through the worn wood of the barrel. It could stand for something extra, allowing the beer more potential for aging; I do believe the stuf will improve with time. As it is now, the body is fair with a drying, dusty astringency that arises mysteriously, the beer is not so acidic. Acidity does come softly into play as a tart fruit that lingers long after the finish. Really lovely stuff, a beer that demands more than a small sample. And my impression of it is improving with each sip.