Every time I turn my head I read around some new DOGFISH HEAD offering made out of some bizarre fruit or extract or barrel-aged whatzis, and usually they sound pretty good. Well, you can’t get the Dogfish Head beers where I live, though I hear that’s going to change, as rumor has it that they are expanding their distribution to include the entire of California. For the time being, trading cross-country is one of the only ways to procure their wares, and that’s how I got this bottle of AU COURANT. Au Courant is a pretty wide-ranging beer, perhaps a little unsure of what it wants to be. It was mildly sour, potentially reflecting strains of bacteria (the good kind) introduced into the brewing process – or maybe that was just the pureed currants, which are all over this one. Candied sugar, and maybe a bit of apricot, making this almost lambic-ish. I know this uses Dogfish’s “house” Belgian ale, and that’s a pretty hoppy ale if you ask me, not really what I wanted necessarily with a beer that really tasted more like a smooth, sipping, wine-like beer. I respect it, but at the end of the day, I just wanted and expected more from this one. 6.5/10.
Monday, April 23, 2007
DOGFISH HEAD “AU COURANT”
Every time I turn my head I read around some new DOGFISH HEAD offering made out of some bizarre fruit or extract or barrel-aged whatzis, and usually they sound pretty good. Well, you can’t get the Dogfish Head beers where I live, though I hear that’s going to change, as rumor has it that they are expanding their distribution to include the entire of California. For the time being, trading cross-country is one of the only ways to procure their wares, and that’s how I got this bottle of AU COURANT. Au Courant is a pretty wide-ranging beer, perhaps a little unsure of what it wants to be. It was mildly sour, potentially reflecting strains of bacteria (the good kind) introduced into the brewing process – or maybe that was just the pureed currants, which are all over this one. Candied sugar, and maybe a bit of apricot, making this almost lambic-ish. I know this uses Dogfish’s “house” Belgian ale, and that’s a pretty hoppy ale if you ask me, not really what I wanted necessarily with a beer that really tasted more like a smooth, sipping, wine-like beer. I respect it, but at the end of the day, I just wanted and expected more from this one. 6.5/10.
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2 comments:
Jay,
This is a pretty similar experience to the Dogfish ales i have had in the past. All of them are pretty good brews, but most seem to be missing that 'something' to make them really great beer.
There's no bugs in this. Just a different method of employing the currants (from the 1st year they offered it), which tend to naturally be slightly sour.
Cheers!
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