Beer - #483 - Moa - Special Reserve Sour Blanc (2012)

Special beer, Special Music, Special Numbers and Special gatherings

A traditional Sour beer with a complexity best described as a riot of flavours. 

With a base of Moa Blanc this wheat beer is a throwback to how the very first beers were produced.

In a break with tradition I'm mid-week drinking,  but it's a Moa Special Reserve Sour Blanc (2012) Limited Edition, so I don't feel guilty.

Brewed by Moa Brewing Company in the style that is of Sour/Wild Ale, they're based in Blenheim, New Zealand

The traditional 750ml bottle. cork and cage and all the drama that is special to this brewhouse, 6% ABV, and about 180 calories a serve, this is 3.54 standard drink units in the bottle.

With a base of Moa Blanc (their Belgian wheat beer) it was then fermented with a wild yeast and aged in oak barrels.

As Josh says "brewed using traditional costly, inefficient and labour intensive techniques."

Fermented using natural wild yeast and aged in oak barrels, Moa Sour Blanc perfectly balances a malty fruit and a complex yeasty acidity.

Moa have a a bit of a mixed bag of beers, some are great some are a bit of a miss. I've read up on this particular one seems to be the former. So as the early summer sun ducks behind a cloud let's get into it.

Of course theatrics opening the thing, the cork is very stubborn and so I resolve to using nut-crackers to twist it. I have soft desk-workers hands that are soft. Then I gave it a proper two thumbs press and off the top popped, well hissed as there is nothing as poor as flying cork.

Really rich orange pour, and a magnificent aroma of sherbet sour-ness, didn't mind the no-head pour, the look and aroma made up for it. It's almost like apple cider aroma.

Well then. It is very cider like. Sherberty and very well carbonated, except I know it's not a beer as there is a definite hoppiness to it.

And it has what I can only call a creaminess that runs through it.

I'm going to cloud up the next glass, naturally having forgotten to do so with my initial excitement and enthusiasm. From my Yeastie Boys drinking I'm expecting a change of flavour with the addition of the sediments muddled in.

Which clouds up the beer, and adds more tartness, and somewhat a more softer middle. I find myself really enjoying this as a sour beer experience, which let's be fair can be a bit hit and miss.

By which I mean you know you're going to get sour, and there are levels where the sourness is all pucker and squint, like a child's sour chew, this isn't that it is for me nicely balanced and layered.

The pdubyah-o-meter rates this as 8.5 random numbers on an arbitrary and imponderable scale of all things of no sense. I like this but I can't help thinking 'cider' as I drink it, which is why I might like it so.  Ideal drink for a summer day I'd say should I ever be in a position to be offered on, which all seems a bit improbable.

The double dip review

1. Am I enjoying it? Yes this is a particularly nice drink.


2. Would I have another? If I'd thought it thorough I'd have got another. I know the shop had a couple on the shelf I might go check. Tomorrow since it's a drive.


3. Would I share with a friend on a porch and set the world to rights? Yes I would, you get theatrics, and drama, and then a really nicely sour and not bitter beer experience.

Extraordinary choice of music, from a tweet I noticed in passing, which means  I'm listening to "Alcest" who are  a French shoegazing band from Bagnols-sur-Cèze, France. This is a track "Autre Temps"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85c-P9hbmBg

More heavy then melodic type shoe-gaze this has kept my ears entertained in the background.

SOUR/WILD ALE

Sour ale is a broad spectrum of wild ales, from the fruity and acetic Flanders Red Ales and Oud Bruins, to the experimental ales gaining popularity in the United States which use lactobacillus, brettanomyces and pediococcus in new and wild ways.