North By Northwest Flemish Sour Ale

Brewed by North By Northwest Restaurant and Brewery
Style: Sour Ale
Austin, Texas USA

Bottle from thickfreakness. Shared with suzygreenberg and my girlfriend Cyn and his friend Justin. Pours orange with a tan ring. Nose is sweet and supremely funky, lot of vinegar and vinous qualities. Taste is really nie and acidic with maybe a very small touch of diaytecal but not enough to ruin it. Overall I like this quite a lot and its damn good.

I first sampled this at the Bomb Factory Party and then multiple times throughout GABF 2008. Much to Ty’s (the brewmaster) chagrin at times, I easily drank more of this over the long weekend than anything else. The beer has a full gold color to it, is reasonably clear and is topped by a frothy, pale white colored head. The aroma has a fruity / tart note of grapefruit, lots of lactic character, plus some welcome harder acidic notes that lean toward acetic and help to boost more fruit aromatic notes. There is a touch of grassy malt towards the finish and there is a soft, lovely, funky, butyric acid stained, musty, musky, barnyard note that lies in the background of the nose and seems to just anchor the whole thing together.

The flavor is just so complex. The sourness actually coats the palate, but is not in anyway overwhelming (at least for this sour head). The acidity is definitely complex in character, it is dominated by lactic sourness, but it has such a nice, expressive acetic acidity to it that I really enjoy finding in my sour beers. There is a lingering, musky, farmhouse cheese note that sort of softly intrudes on the sour parade. This has quite a bit of fruitiness to it, that is really amplified by the complex sourness; flavors of sour apple, a touch of tart cherry notes and a richly fruity, balsamic type note each add some layered richness to this brew. Carbonated just enough to keep the beer light and textured, the beer is quite quaffable, but definitely has a light viscousness to it that helps to soften the effect of the acidity just a bit.

This is an incredibly fantastic beer, there was a reason I drank so much of this. I am really quite jealous that Austin has a brewery doing things like this (I wish a commercial AZ enterprise would start doing beers like this). I really like the acetic edge that is in this beer; I am finding that I like a more dominant lactic character to be offset by acetic acid notes, as it really boosts the complexity of a brew.

Draught at GABF 2008. Clear golden coloured with a small white head. Fruity and light acidic aroma of berries, oak and glue with notes of brett Fruity and light acidic flavour of berries oak and glue with notes of brett. Tart finish.

GABF 2008. Pours clear amber with a small, fizzy, white head, somewhat diminishing with fair lacing. Aroma is heavy malt (cookie, straw, hay), average hops (flowers, perfume, grass), average yeast (horse blanket, barnyard) with notes of apple, pear, and peach. Medium bodied, sticky texture, average carbonation, and a sour finish. Long duration, light sweetness, moderate acidity and sourness.
Earlier Rating: 10/21/2007 Total Score: 3.1
GABF ’07. Pours hazy ruby with a small, fizzy, off-white head, lasting lacing. Aroma is average malt (cookie, hay, straw), average hops (flowers, citrus), average yeast (earth) with notes of cherry and raspberry. Medium bodied, sticky texture, average carbonation, and a bitter finish. Average duration, light sweetness, moderate acidity and bitterness.

G.A.B.F. 2008: Hazy golden pour with a wispy head. The aroma is acetic with a slight acetone suggestion. Light bretty earthiness with leather and mild cobweb. Sweet and tart flavor. Has some green raisin, wood, mild leather and a chemically not of acetone. A pretty decent attempt to a Sour.

Light honey color, mostly clear, just a slight haze. Decent funky and fresh (crisp!) pils malt and lactic yeast. A little honey and pils malt sweetness compliments the mild funk and tartness. Very clean and flavorful. Oily and filmy texture, light to moderate lambic-like feet funk... medium acidity, very nice overall.

GABF 2008. A sour brown sugar nose on this gold pour. A strong lactic sour flavor with plenty of barnyard in there as well. A little hazy in appearance.

Appearance is clear golden with a white head that fades fast to a ring of foam. Aroma is lactic sour, sour cherry, lemon, musty grain, and vinegar. Flavor is cereal, musty grain, lemon, sort of milky, sour cherry, white grape and more vinegar. Dry and very slick palate. About as good as it gets in Texas but its not amazing.