Beer - #246 - Three Boys - Wild Plum Ale

In for a penny with this, a Three Boys Wild Plum Ale, Brewed by Three Boys Brewery in the style of a  Fruit Beer from the wonderful Christchurch, New Zealand.

A 330ml of a 7.7ABV beer , 1.9 standard drink units give or take.

Every autumn in the deep south, the Three Boys family harvest wild cherry plums from the family farm and celebrate their capture in traditional preserves. The Three Boys brewer takes these same fruit and captures those evocative flavours in this Wild Plum Ale.

Aroma is just of yeast and a hint of a fruit sweetness, it's not pronounced.  Pours a really golden orange with more head than humpty dumpty!

It's quite tart and bit like unsweetened stewed fruit as a taste, you can pick that it's plums, but knowing that it's called Plum Ale sort of helps out :-)

It's not sweet to drink, might want to notch that up a bit, but then it might be more a lambic fruit. and then I thought that there is a roughness in the profile, not enough to put you off though.

Drinking this along with a Nick Cave live from the KCRW album on a summer evening and all is good.

I thought....and that's how the trouble started....  that I might have got more sweetness, less tartness, and I thought I would get more 'musty' than there is. It's really a fantastic colour, well carbonated and doesn't have unusual or sharp edges that catch you out. But it's not a lambic, as I tell myself again.

So how do I mark it as a fruit beer/ale? The same way. As it warmed up a bit there was more 'fruitiness' but not overt pluminess. So the pdubyah-o-meter ever a quandary says that 7, lucky 7 for this, it's good but not spectacular, and only a 7 because less would be mean.

I liked it, would I have another? Not really there are many better alternatives to this, cider for instance come to mind. However big final thing, 7.7ABV, likely to be a show stopper if you think that you'd have another, could be a short evening not overly rewarded.

FRUIT BEER (def.)

Any ale or lager made with fruit. See beer description for flavor. Body, color, hop character and strength vary depending on the type of fruit used.

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