Magic Hat Odd Notion - American Sour Ale (Winter 09)

Formerly brewed at Magic Hat Brewing Company
Style: Sour Ale/Wild Ale
South Burlington, Vermont USA

Serve in Snifter, Tulip, Tumbler

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( 12oz bottle thanks to Swalden28) Pours clear orange with nice head. Nose of cola, plastic, nuts. Tastes like a sour brown ale, nuts, cola, and finishes like a cola.

Pours deep amber into a tumbler. Off-white head with medium retention recedes to skim surface. Sour chocolate and oak aromas. Tart with upfront chocolate covered sour cherry turning to a lasting sour oak and vanilla puckery finish.

Smells like slag. Yeasty swirling pour on a light rootbeer background. Weird dark sour or tart beer experience. Goes over well. Not bad, very unique. Almost a sour ale, really just lightly sour. Finish goes woody wet and wet leather. I think I like

A nice amber color with decent carbonation but minimal head. The aroma is more of a solid brown ale than a sour. This is reminiscent of La Folie sour brown with a few months of sour action going on. I really do see dueling brown and sour ale characteristics going on here. This is certainly no Cantilon as far as sours go, but its an exceptional sour for $1.34 a bottle. Much better than a few other collaborative sours I’ve had this year. To magic hat: just send me 12 packs of this stuff for $16!!!!

Sweet malty brown bread on the nose. Sweet and tiny bit sour to begin with but mellow bran flakes become dominant allowing the mouth to relax with some tomato herbiness. Surprising dryness in there too. Not bad.

12oz bottle poured into a shaker. This sour ale pours mahogany brown with a medium-sized persistant head. The nose is mild with lager and malt tones being prominant. The body is medium to medium-light and nicely carbonated. The flavor is that of a slightly sour brown ale. It’s refreshing and tasty and wets your thirst nicely. The finish is tart and rememberable.

Tasted 1/13/10. 12oz bottle. Hazy with a brown-ish hue. Spotty ring of cream colored head. Aromas of bready caramel toast and a touch cocoa. Fullbodied and unexpectedly sour. Tart citrus and grapefruit. Touch vinegar. Not too overt on the sour aspect, and has a nice yeasty character. Flavors of apples and caramel. Nice sweet and tart palate. Touch flinty a trace burn. Hint of pepper. Straw and berry undertone. Nice and mild sour style. Decent.

Draft. Not initally knowing this was a Magic Hat beer and not really being a huge fan of "sour ales", I have to say I was somewhat surprised with the results. Perhaps I enjoyed it more because I wasn’t rating it against the brand? Who knows. Aroma is touches of sour and notes of oak vanilla. Flavor is mostly tart, just tart with notes of sweetness and berry sticking there.

Poured from bottle. Aroma of roasted malt and apricot. Opaque mahogany. A touch of tan head remains. Definitely tart, but not overwhelming. Flavors of sour apple, cherry, vanilla. Slight smoke notes in aftertaste. I think I’d like this more as a summer brew.

Let me get this out of the way right off the bat - yes, I did buy the entire mix 12 pack in order to rate this one beer. I’m not proud of this, but hey, it is what it is. It looks a lot like iced tea in the glass, if iced tea had a thick beige head. Aroma is surprisingly malty, with just a touch of citric sourness. Flavor is not at all what I was expecting - sour up front, lightly citric and vinegary, then a malty, toasty flavor, the it finishes sour again. I wasn’t that impressed when I started drinking it, but it kind of grew on me as I finished it.