Cherry Sour Blonde (2019) - Tasting Notes

Here is a long overdue set of tasting notes for my 2019 version of a Cherry Sour Blonde.  I blended this beer from 5 Sour Blonde's (based on a sampling of my beers) that had been aging for several years at that point and which had complex flavor profiles but fairly low levels of acidity (as the fruit contribute quite a bit of acidity themselves).  This is my second attempt at this style (read about the first attempt here)

I aged this beer with 11 lbs of sour cherries and 8 lbs of sweet cherry, that I picked from a local orchard, for 8 months.  I bottled with 1.5 lbs of homemade invert #2 syrup and pasteurized once the beer had carbonated in the hopes of preserving a bit of sweetness to enhance the fruit flavor.

The beer how now been in bottles for nearly 2 year which is incredible.  I'm going to be blending up some new Sour Blonde here in the next couple weeks so it's time to get some tasting notes in the record-book to maybe help me make decisions in the next round

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Musty, earthy, and leathery brett character. Also get a well integrated cherry aroma - tart and overripe fruit
• Appearance:
• Pours with a thin layer of foam that quickly disappears completely.  Light reddish brown in color and a bit murky (I ended up pouring in some of the dregs which didn't help this)
• Flavor:
• Up front the beer is quite tart.  Once the initial wave of acidity clears I get a strong cherry flavor, almost candy-like in character.  The cherry flavor lingers into the finish.  Also in the finish I get some brett character - earthy and leathery.  I also get a bit of what seems like bready malt.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium-light bodied and pretty dry.  The acidity prickles the palate slightly and lingers for quite some time which calls on  you to take another sip
• Overall:
• This is a pretty boldly flavored fruit beer.  It has a pleasing and prevalent cherry character to it but it has a lot of the brett character that is able to cut through and give it a fairly distinct Lambic-style character.  It is pretty sour but in a way that compliments the acidic fruit and seems like it could be the natural tartness of the sour cherries.  I find it to be very drinkable and quite refreshing.