Upland Blackberry Lambic

Brewed by Upland Brewing Company
Style: Lambic - Fruit
Bloomington, Indiana USA

Shared by wetheral. Lots of tart and berry aromas. Flavors were similar, but not as tart as I had hoped for. Blackberry to the end though.

Bottle: (Thanks Andy!) Red pour with a pinkish/white dense head. Nice aroma- fruity and earthy. Nice mild oak with a bretty earthiness. Has a subtle vanilla note, with berry skins as well. Creamy carbonation with a mild acidic feel. Not much sourness, but it does have an earthy funk of leather and oak. The fruit is present but not in your face. Gets a touch perfumy in it’s fruitiness as it warms, yet it remains tasty and offers that dry, wild yeast I look for. Maybe get more complex with age.

Bottle from Sprinkle. Nice pour, darkish red with only a touch of fruity color, nice head. Aroma is lightly tart, a touch of tart, musky cellar, with a little bit of blackberry. Flavor has a decent tart up front, some fruitiness midway through, and a mildly sweet fruity finish. Somewhat grainy, surprisingly, perhaps not mashed or fermented fully. The grain is a little strong overall, but this is certainly a nice start. Not that special overall, really.

Light haziness to a ruby red raspberry colored body. Nose has a really nice blackberry and raspberry natural tartness - pie crust and tart, prickly just-under-ripe berries all over it, with a subtle and quiet lactic yeast note throughout. Body is decent up front, medium to light, but thins out and dissolves over the back. Nice straight lactic tartness and sourness, comes across like the lactic yeast in Berliner weisse. Good stuff, wonderful fruit character makes up for the slightly muted

poured a reddish color decent sized head funky nose some berry definate tart notes. flavor followed suit, tart acidic flavors with Blackberry on the finish. But i would have to say it was sessionable.

Bottle, shared by wetherel at the Lost Abbey Saints and Sinners party. Pours a pinkish-amber with a white ring. Big, fruity, sour aroma. Taste of sour fruit, like under-ripe berries. Lingering sour berry flavors. Tasty and drinkable.

2008 Release; Sampled October 2008
I popped the cap and had a sinking feeling after not hearing even a hint of a hiss, luckily I am a dumb-ass an there is a cork in the beer too. The beer is definitely carbonated as it pours into my large Tripel Karmeliet tulip with a frothy, large bubbled, dirty, pale purple stained, off-white colored head. The head doesn’t completely disappear as I was expecting, it settles in, quickly, to about an 1/8 inch layer of froth. The beer is a ruddy, opaque color that shows some orange around the edges; when held up to the light it shows a touch of clarity and shows a bright, light red color. The aroma is quite tart, but picks up a restrained, sour berry note to it as well as spicy oak aromas and a woody-tannic note that smells of both oak and berry flesh / seeds. The fruitiness comes off as quite floral and there is a slight medicinal edge to the nose that seems to accentuates the floral character as well. Phenolic notes really interweave with the woody oak notes and some tannic berry character to provide a sharpness to the aroma that is interesting and I can’t quite figure out if I really like it or if it is a bit distracting. A substantial, subtle (if that makes any sense) fruitiness struggles to be noticed under the sharp notes, but does peek through from time to time.

Light bodied and refreshing in combination with a solid, fruity sourness. The beer picks up a soft oak character towards the middle and finish that also tends to boost the body a bit with some tannic, creamy feeling, texture. Also lingering on in the long finish is a solid, ripe berry flavor that really clings to the tongue, but in a soft, almost subtle manner (you almost have to think about it to notice it). While most of the sourness is contributed by lactic acid, there is enough fruit derived sourness to add a bit of complexity and keep the beer from being simplistic in its tartness. While sour, this is not as bracing as most traditional examples of Lambic. This has a bit more oak character than is traditional too, but I am quite pleased to experience that it is still on the soft side; flavors of buttery oak can be noticed at times (especially after a burp), and there is a light spicy oak note as well as some tannic, palate coating woodiness that contributes to the overall palate presence of this beer.

This has a substantial berry presence, once I start to think about it; blackberries are a fairly subtle fruit, especially after fermentation, but they definitely play a well defined role here, from the nice berry fruitiness, to the boost in tartness. The blackberry notes really have a nice, rip, juiciness to it that isn’t really sweet, but somehow seems to project enough fruit character to make one think of sweetness while drinking this. This is especially true as the beer warms up, in fact it seems to actually have a touch of residual sugar left even.

This is much better than I anticipated, though it is not really a Lambic in character; it has a much softer sourness and does not have the complexity & funkiness of a well made Lambic (in fact that is the glaring flaw here, it really needs some Brett character to be a great example of a Lambic). This is definitely quite tasty and drinkable and the fruit expression is almost perfect right now; any more and it could get cloying, les and it wouldn’t have the requisite fruit levels.

From a 750mL Bottle. Pours a murky, purplish-red color with a fizzy head of tanned pink. Funky brett aromas with some seedy, blackberry tartness. Earthy and musty with hints of black pepper. The berry notes are clearly there, but have a dry, mellow presence. Medium light bodied, moderately carbonated mouthfeel with a light-moderate acidity. Definitely more funky than sour, with a noticeable musty brett presence. The berry flavors come through nicely, but the blackberries don’t really have the flavor depth to leap out of the flavors, which leaves it missing some of that bite. The brett dominance gives it an old and mellow flavor, and could use some biting acidity to help add some complexity to the palate; as a side note, sampled side-by-side, the acidity from their raspberry lambic seemed to add more of a welcome balance for my tastes. Finishes fairly clean, with a soft blackberry flavor lingering on the palate. Enjoyable, but definitely lacks the palate depth and complexity that can only be found in great fruit lambics.