Destihl Wild Sour - Flanders Red
by BradDestihl is another brewery that's relatively new to Wisconsin (or, at least, to me). Their Wild Sour series started popping up around town sometime last summer, and any time you put "sour" on a beer, you've got my attention. Looking at all 4 styles/options (Gose, Flanders Red, Berliner Weiss, Raspberry Berliner Weiss), I decided to go back to my roots and try the Flanders Red.
Flanders Red is one of many beers Destihl makes as part of their Wild Sour series. In fact, looking at their website has taught me we're totally missing out in Wisconsin, as they have other delicious-sounding beers like Smoked Gose, Sour Cherry Stout, and "Adambier" (which sounds like a sour brown ale). You're killing me, smalls.
That all being said, the beer came out of this can super heady, with a thick, bone-ish colored head. The beer itself is cloudy and light amber in color. The first taste is extremely tart &endash; almost too tart. It grows on you, though, as the cherries really come through.
Prep/Cooking
Aside from being thick, there wasn't much notable about Flanders Red's batter. It was slightly darker in color than the beer's head, and it lost almost all sense of sour tartness or fruitiness, which allowed the beer's caramel malts to come through (which was actually nice considering that's almost impossible in liquid form).
Results
The first thing I noticed about these beers is they "kinda smell like fruitcake" (as per my notes). The most disappointing part is that the flavor almost completely died with these. The first few bites tasted like normal pancakes, and eventually I got a little sense of something that was somewhat malty, somewhat bitter. Nothing at all like the batter, and certainly nothing like the beer.
The Decision
- Pancakes: No. I know sours are hit or miss with people, but if you're into the beer, don't bother with the pancakes.
- Syrup: Yes. Now this is really interesting. Adding syrup restored a lot of the fruity and malty notes the beer had but didn't bring back the sour bite. It was actually kind of good.
I liken the experience to the first time I had Wisniowka, which is a Polish cherry liquor &emdash; without any sweetness, it's really dry, almost bitter fruit flavor, but adding a little sugar and all the flavors come to life.
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