Valley Brew Decadence Grand Cru 2007

Formerly brewed at Valley Brewing Company
Style: Sour Ale
Stockton, California USA

C-Bus 8 - Nip bottles courtesy of stoutlover72 and ClarkVV: Pours a clear copper color with a small white head. Aroma, some alcohol, fruits, a little sweetness, not much funk or sour in the nose. Flavor, some heat, boozy fruits, a soft sourness to it, with a bit of a tang, lightly funky. This is great stuff.

Nip bottle, extra special thanks to stoutlover72!! Poured a clear, coppery orange with a swirly dusting and a loose ring of white head. The aroma rocked!.. vinegar tartness and funky old dusty barn were accented by pomegranates and white grapes.. additional waves of dark fruit and cherry pits waft through as this warms up. The flavor keeps up well.. beginning with prickly tartness from the pomegranates as well as some metallic notes.. a hit of almost bourbon-like sugar leads into a dark vinous (and still sour) middle.. some dust and enjoyable funk also in there.. the back-end and finish were certainly dry with some warmth and power from the well-integrated alcohol. Sour on the palate, mostly of the fruit skin and metallic kind.. medium-bodied. Really cool brew!

7.4-oz. Thanks, Aspidites! Pours deep golden straw. Light slim rim of white fizz. Big wet leaf, apple, funky blanket notes on the nose. Lots of deep fruit complexity there along with it. Fizzy, sharp, medium body. The flavors come through plentiful, hot, and tack-sharp: apples, other red fruit, deep leaves, funk. Clean peppery finish. It’s exceedingly rare for me to get this excited about a flemish sour, but this one’s a knockout.

Bottle... Cloudy amber ale with a small, creamy, off-white head. Decent retention. The nose is a wonderful marriage of leather, barnyard-horse blanket-must funkiness with undertones of lemon and aged, sharp cheese. The flavor is very well-balance and suppresses the high ABV quite well. Observations of sweet biscuit and toffee malts, moderate alcohol and hop bitterness along with medium pungency. Full-bodied and very astringent with tingly carbonation. Bittersweet, lightly acidic, bone-dry finish. Thanks to stoutlover72 for shipping this beer from about as far away as a beer can be shipped within the continental U.S.!

Cloudy orange, decent head. Smells like orange juice and rye? Maybe. Seems like I’m smelling rye in everything lately, so it may just be me. I dunno. Mildly sweet orange and honey flavor and a contrasting dry, crisp finish. Very enjoyable.

Courtesy aspidites. Clear amber with a small, dense, short lived off white cap. All pomegranate flemish sour in the nose right away, some richness from the quad showing up as it warms. Pomegranate flavor is spot on. Quad adds hints of rich malt to the flavor and weight to the palate. Full body, just smoother than balanced. Pomegranate finish is tart and dry. Very good. Would like to have more quad in the blend and would love to try the Pomegranate Lambic on its own.

a big thanks to Mitch (Beerguy101) for bringing this to noogfest III This poured honey colored with no head. The beer is sour up front w/ some back end balance

22oz bottle. Reddish-copper color. Aroma of a sour, hints of bread. Very tart body. Rich malty texture.