New Holland Blue Sunday

Formerly brewed at New Holland Brewing Company
Style: Sour Ale
Holland, Michigan USA

Reddish brown with a thin light tan head, thinning over time. Fruit malty sort of sweetness in a light grape nose. Lower body but reasonable carbonation makes it creamy enough. Sweeter malt. Alcohol. Lacto, perhaps. Light grape. Astringent. Light vanilla. Some acidity. I was told by others in attendance that this was better than they remembered, so perhaps time was kind to it?

750 ml bottle from the brewery (Holland, MI). Pours a well carbonated pour, big beige head that stays fairly big, dissipating quickly to a decent layer, hazy dark amber body ridden heavily with carbonation. Aromas throw some decent sourness, tart cherries, dust, pretty funk, a touch of vanilla and oak, faint anise on the backend along with a touch of brown sugar. Initial is not as blantantly sour as anticipated, but tart and good enough, throwing some good acidity and lacto up front, vanilla, oak, wet wood, with good tannin driven bitterness, carbonation good, sweetness comes in a bit with of anise and caramel, no real fruit influence, maybe some light sour cherry and regular raisin and cinnamon in minute amounts. Sourness grows a bit further in, oak comes through good, tannins from the barrel are very nice. This beer is solid, complex. However, it is a bit muttled in itself, offering many flavors but none of them done exceptionally well. A pretty good interesting beer, to say the least.

Murky deep orange-brown body, medium buff/tan, persistent, clumping head. Tangy, tart nose, like cranberries or cranberry sauce. Tart, sharply carbonated body, with grape or raisin notes, toast, and spice. Not especially funky or sour. Smooth, quaffable. Pretty good.

Bottle at BCTC 2009: Muddy orange brown with a light tan dense head. Lots of buttery oak, toasted woody notes, some vanilla (subtle bourbon?), marshmallow and tart-ish currant. Lots of buttery oak in the flavor. Some underlying currant with lots of buttery oak giving some vanilla subtlety. A bit much oak, even for my taste, without enough acidity, but still a nice oak aged ale.

A misty red pour capped with a lighty brown mocha-like foam. Mostly transparent, but deep-hued. Aroma of something like chocolate covered green apples. The sweetness has an earthiness and distant bitterness about it suggesting dark, mostly-pure cocoa, and the tartness is notably mild, like a granny smith or a green delicious, or possibly even a simple bartlett pear. There’s also a pleasant mineral character that leads the aromas into white wine-like dressings, but these aren’t as recognizable as they are to me in many blonde wild ales; it’s definitely there, but it’s not distinctly sauvignon blanc or guwertztraminer or something else. It’s plain, but orderly and complex; a thick tropical sunshine of mango and pineapple arrives in a flood after that mineral sensations have passed, without remittance, and rather impressively. And underneath all this there’s a healthy sweetness of cookie dough and dried cherry malt to anchor it; I’m quite surprised at the range I’m discovering here, and though there’s a bit of acetone toward the back, it’s altogether an impressive display.

Equivalently, the flavor is full of all these reserved subtleties, and it seems quieter to me in general. Dried cherries and pomegranate arils readily blend with the predominate apple and pear fruit characters, making them a bit more gaudy, and appreciably so. The minerally yeast components that recalled white wine in the nose are also consistently present, though because the malt flavors are somewhat punchier than expected, the mineral character is more of a steady, bitter airiness than an outstanding flavor. But it really works nicely to highlight the juicy flavors of the malts and of the spicy-sweet smoky vanilla impartation of oak, being so hidden but so obvious at the same time. The absentia of sourness is something off-putting, but the fleshiness of the cherry flavors is somewhat compensatory while leading it down a wholly different track; really more oude bruin than sour, but picturing it that way is not such a bad thing.

Palate suffers a bit from its quite brittle and bold extremity of carbonation; medium in body; finishing familiarly on cinnamon apples, red wine, and cherry skins. A whisk of sourness breezes in post-finish, but dries out into the remnants of those mineral yeasts too quickly for it to make an impression. While far from a challenging or groundbreaking, the construction of this very restrained sour ale is detailed and articulate, focusing full on the malts while the tepid yeasts take care to provide little nuances here and there. Still, the feeling that this is a simple and "safe" rendition of something more classical is inescapable. Thanks Derek!

This one was a bit of a weird one. I cracked three bottles. One was lightly sour with malty overtones. The next, shared at a festival was smokey on the aroma with a faint sour flavor. The last bottle was solidly sour with hints of molasses and cherries in the body. Good, but not as good as Moxie.

bottle shared by BBB63- Thanks a ton MIKE. Pours a depp brown with ruby red highlights and a big bubbled beige fomany head. nice lice. Aroma of toffee, chocoalte, bandaids, biscuity malts, a drop of booze, big time medicinal notes. . flavor is a tart cherry, doughy, sweet bread, dopplebock. tight.

Corked bottle from Brewpub.. Poured dark brown color with a large fizzy off-white head that mostly lasted with good lacing. Moderate to heavy sweet citrus earthy aroma. Medium body with a sticky texture. Medium sweet malty flavor with a moderate sweet & sour finish of moderate to long duration. My expectations where met with a beer that may need some age to blend and balance.