Panil Barriquée (Sour)

Brewed by Panil Birra Artigianale - Birrificio Torrechiara
Style: Sour Ale
Torrechiara-Parma, Italy

This is a world class Flemish Sour Ale. I first tried Duchess de Bourgeone, then Rodenbach. When i got my hands on this bottle it blew them away. The color alone says it all. The aroma was of unripened cherries and vinegar. The frothy head added a nice creamyness to this sour treat. The oak-aging adds a smoothness which mellows out the tartness. A perfect PUCKER! 100% PERFECT!!!

Bottled in 2005. Poured a pretty burgundy color with sedimentation, but not a lot of thickness. The head was almost non-existent, much like a lambic. The aroma was incredible, cherries and light vinegar jumped out of the bottle. The glass revealed additional notes of cheesey lambic-ness, light lemon type tartness, and the wild bacteria of a lambic. Funky barnyard aromas also present. The flavor was great, a cross between a light lambic (not overly tart, though) with all of the above aromas and funk. Some vanilla came out as it warmed, as did the woody oak notes. The mouthfeel was light and refreshing, not nearly as thick as the Duchesse, much like a good lambic. Carbonation was very low. Finish somewhat dry. A very enjoyable and refreshing beer. Re-rate, bottle 515 of 07, as beer number nine in a killer July 09 Super Secret Sour State Line Tasting (SSSSLT) featuring (first to last by my counts): Supplication, Consecration, La Folie, Dissident, Cuvee de Castleton, Red Poppy, Lambic de Hill, Festina Lente, Panil. Musty sweet oak and red malts, cherries, light lemons. Not super distinguished after running all these sours with quite amazing distinguishability. Oak and musty cellar, some wheat under it all. Something candy-like in the finish, especially at warmer temperatures. Nice, but uninspiring. Thanks, Robert, though, for sharing. A great evening.

Pours red with small wisp of head. Sour funkiness hits you from the start with hints of raspberry/cherry. Very tart from start to finish almost hiding some of the complexity of this ale, but as it warms you pick up more vinuous characteristics. Finishes very dry.

bottle courtesy of richlikebeer in a trade from eons ago. pours a reddish brown with a large khaki head. aroma is of sour cherries and musty wood. flavor is of a tart brown ale, sour cherries oak and some old barn funk on a humid day. while not my favorite style, I can certainly appreciate the complexity of all that is going on here. thanks Rich!

Champagne bottle. Poured brown, ruby red when held to the light, with a small, rapidly disapating head of fizzy bubbles, some medium to small sized sediment floating around. Nice aroma of rotting strawberries, apple cider, oak, and rind of brie - slight ammonia. Flavor is lightly sweet, moderately acidic, heavy apple sour all the way through. Medium body. Finishes like a warm Chianti, very dry, quite pleasant. I’m just wondering why this has almost no carbonation? It seems some bubbles would have made the sourness much more enjoyable. A good beer, but there are certainly better sours.

A dark reddish brown body is fairly clear. Rich cherry and wood over a bit of funk. The flavor is nicely balanced between the funk-sour of the lactobacillus and the sweet, vanilla maltiness. Top-notch beer.

The foreboding nearly purple hue of Panil Barriquée glinted a rusty red in my trappist glass, a somewhat haunting presage that the thin beige film sitting above could not alleviate. On the nose, however, a far more vibrant and stimulating ambience emerge. The opulent aroma of dark caramel fuses with the succulent grape juice, vanilla, sour cherries and apple fragrances. As ostentatious as every Italian I have known, this Flemish Sour evolves an equally pugnacious character on the tongue. Grapefruit, lemon, cherries, berries, and apple juice all lend to the profuse acerbity and bitterness that obliterates on the first sip, and persists until the very last. The palate lacks a balancing sweetness that might assuage some of the puckering without erasing the subtle complexity. Sourness is not unpleasant and is a quality I do enjoy, but the Barriquée in my opinion demands a little more aging before the sharp flavors becomes more rounded and enjoyable. Vedremo, as they say...

The ebullient Italian way of life has a distinct way of taking the mundane and making it festive. Take the Italian dinner, for example, whose table is criss-crossed with mercurial debate, love songs and even a handful of food or two. Or the zest and pep the Italians demonstrate in war; in WWI the first battle of Isonzo ended in utter defeat, but the vivacious Italians repeated the very same push four more times all with disastrous results, demonstrating a non-chalance rarely seen outside the Mediterranean. Until only recently Italians, partly out of apathy and partly out of inability, retained in power a loud-mouthed, outspoken and candid politician as President who brought a much needed vigor to an otherwise stuffy European political arena (and along with it some rude, offensive and hilarious remarks). This same exuberance is expressed in Italian beer, so far as Flemish Sour Ales are concerned. My own opinion stems from the exemplary Panil Barriquée. It’s a speciously straight forward beer, packing all the anticipatory vinegar sourness while retaining a few surprising qualities that are only discovered with a little breathing and a little warmth. The murky, red color of the Panil, familiar to sommeliers everywhere, has a small trace of oakish brown, perhaps to remind drinkers of the intense aging involved in the brewing process. The head is a delicate, tan fringe that quickly fizzles away in the heat of its own pour. From the ale to my untrained olfactory comes a barrage of the sour vinegar smell, with an aggressively bullied puff of sour cherries, red wine and a ubiquitous oak. Alas, this is where the pleasures of this finely crafted beer come to an end. Each sip brought a laceration I have never known in any other Flemish Sour Ale. A great crimson wave washed over my tongue and pricked each one of my taste buds like a corrosive red tide. The delicate flavors I knew were there could not be found. I blame my own inexperience, but I did not think it would be so difficult to extricate the sweeter and deeper flavors that the Panil promised. Maybe it’s an overexertion on the beer’s part; maybe I’m unfit to handle the Panil, or maybe I’m just ill suited for the garrulous Italian attitude that fills the bottle. Whatever the ill may be, I’m mournful – not upset – that this fine Flemish Sour Ale is beyond my capabilities. I’m all too happy to see it enjoyed by those with more refined tastes, where I can acknowledge that there is a deeper concoction of beer in their glass than I’ll ever know, in the same way that there is a deeper appreciation in the Italian lifestyle than I can ever understand.