Ithaca Excelsior! Brute

Brewed by Ithaca Beer Company
Style: Sour Ale
Ithaca, New York USA

Sampled on 12/6/2009. Thanks to the anonymous beer lover at the Bruery tasting room that shared this gem with everyone. This sour ale pours a very opaque straw gold color from the bottle. Large sized white foamy head, with nice retention and good lacing. The aroma was tart, funky, musty and fruity. A medium to full bodied sour ale. The malts are fruity and orange with tons of tartness and lots of funk. This beer is near La Foille in its acidity, but there is more malt sweetness to help balance it out. Lively carbonation. Excellent balance. Very good sour. Mouthfeel is full and round. Finish is clean and dry. Aftertaste is tart and funky.

Bottle. I’ve been waiting for a good day to crack this and today qualifies! Pours a hazy straw color with a massive head and funky aromas that attack from arm’s length. Closer inspection reveals a bit more complexity, lemon and grass, but it’s pretty funk heavy. Flavor is interesting and not quite as strongly sour as I hoped. The wheat comes through nicely... there’s a bit of a wheat beer gone foul flavor in there that blends nicely with the barnyard and lemon. It’s very light on the palate and seems a bit thin at times, but then it swirls back with a tart little aftertaste or side current and my faith is restored again. It gets me thinking again about my dream of a free country, where man can drink whatever he wants, where all beers are not created equal, but they are all priced the same. Here’s hoping that Ithaca lowers the price to $2.50 per bottle...

Thanks to Mike for this! Batch E!018. Hazy gold pour. Fizzy white head and aroma of leather, must and white grapes. Green apple, leather, and must. Dry finish and very acidic up front

hazy gold white hd aroma sourgrass hay funk good stuff flavor same. thanks eric

Pours hazy golden with a huge frothy off white head. Nose and flavor are citrus and funk. Nice dry finish.

From a bottle poured a hazy golden color with a lot of head. Nice tart sweet flavor with a asting aftertaste.

Golden-orange, large white head, great retention, excellent lacing. Aroma is quite sour, highly acidic, barnyard, leather, lemons. Flavour is softer than the aroma had me believe, not nearly as acidic or sour, citrus. Acidic mouthfeel, medium body, high carbonation. Finishes acidic, dry, citrus.

The acid picks up in the finish, citrus is always there. Good but not great.

355ml bottle shared by beerhugger, thanks Steve.
Opened on February 13, 2009.
Batch E!010.

750ml from LilBeerDoctor - thanks, Margaret! Lovely soft carbonation on the hazy golden pour, very inviting from the outset. Love the aroma, a splendid bretty cloud with dry yeast and serious lemon. The champagne yeasts certainly do the trick in terms of the carbonation, which is thick and lively without getting in the way of things. The tartness is mild in the first few sips, but deepens as you go on - and it’s really a pleasure to swirl this one around in the mouth. Eventually, the funk and citrus tend to abate a bit in favor of a seriously dry feel, like apple skins and pinot grigio. What I initially thought was a user-friendly sour ended up being complex and mercurial. Very fine.