Rivertown Pestilence Hibiscus Sour Brown Ale

Brewed by Rivertown Brewing
Style: Sour Ale/Wild Ale
Cincinnati, Ohio USA

Serve in Snifter, Tulip, Tumbler

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Growler sample shared by Tmoney99. Translate the name of this beer into taste and smell and you pretty much sum this one up. The aroma was rotting flowers soaked with sweat and perhaps a bit of baby spit up. The flavor is much of the same. I can’t imagine that this was intended to be this way.

Apparently this one needs to bottle ferment for awhile. My buddy Kevin saved a bottle for me as he said it was the worst thing he had ever tasted. We opened this bottle after it had been cellared for a few months and it is far from horrible. Aroma of grapes, hops, candy and cheese. Trust me though, its not bad. Taste is bitter but very sweet like sweet tart candy with a hint of fruit and a malty background. As sad as it sounds, I was really looking forward to a horrible beer and slamming it on here, but this isn’t nearly the case. Not the best sour ever, but still very good. If you have this beer, please let it bottle age for awhile.

This was one of the most horrible things to ever touch my palate. It was as if someone had fermented bile and tried to pass it off as beer. The flavor lingered in my mouth for hours. Never been a big fan of Rivertown, but this has ruined them for me. I will avoid them now and forever.

Bottle, pours a medium red, aroma is funky and a bit earthy, the flavour was a light sour, pretty typical flavour of a flemish sour, not sure why all the hate, not a great style imo, but this one was a fair attempt.

Sample during the Armageddon tasting at Ale Wine & Spirits in Powell on 12/20/2012. The beer pours a dark reddish-amber color with a thin white head that evaporates quickly to an outer ring. Spotty lacing. Sour fruit and yeast in the nose. Light body with a metallic character and notes of funky fruit and earth. The finish is cloyingly sour and metallic. Not good.

Bottle at Big Beers. Smell reminds me of "sick" and possibly hot dogs...and heartburn. Flavor doesn’t get a ton better. My first miss with Rivertown.

(12oz bottle, courtesy of thirdeye11) Pours a clear amber-brown body with a small off-white head. Aroma of doughnuts, stale bread, nuts, honey, and butterscotch candies. Flavor of peanut oil, dough, butter, and spoiled fruit. Nasty. I am guessing this was an unintentionally infected beer that they chose to sell as a sour.

(12oz bottle) clear rich amber, ring of fine offwhite bubbles. Nose of cat pee, pencil erasers, wet stinky mulch, sawdust, butterscotch, fucking nasty. Taste of lightly tart wheat, cranberry, well carbonated, funky, buttery, weird and gross.

12 ounce bottle
Maybe I got a bottle that wasn’t off or maybe by keeping it in the fridge I kept chemistry from making it worse. Either way it met my expectations for a release from Rivertown. There are positive aspects as well as flaws much like many of their other releases.

Aroma / Appearance - Malty brown liquid pours slowly. The bottom contains a large chunk of yeast like shavings of a chocolate bar. Idle bubbles of carbonation do not inspire much confidence. Strongly steeped tea with a hint of sourness complement the musty nature that rests in the background. It is like walking into an old bookstore that has been shuttered for years.

Flavor / Palate - Sour black cherries are initially tart before settling into a pale imitation of an American sour. Instead of having depth the sourness builds until nothing can be tasted. It’s not great but compared to the "lambic" I would take another bottle of this instead.

Poured from a bottle into a tulip glass. Pours a darker brown with a greyish head of foam. There’s some chunks of sediment that ended up in my glass. The aroma is like bleu cheese if you try to get a large sniff in, but if you take quick sniffs, the moldy feet smell has a bit of a hibiscus note to it. The taste is all bleu cheese. I can’t handle it. Drain pour.