The Bruery Sour In The Rye

Brewed By: The Bruery in Placentia, California  

Purchased: 750ml bottle bought at West Lakeview Liquors in Chicago, IL; 2013 (2012 bottle/vintage)

Style/ABV: Wild Ale, 7.8%

Reported IBUs: ?

Tonight is Thursday (well technically Friday at this point), which is an excuse to drink fancy beer. About The Bruery: 

The Bruery are based out of Placentia, California. As with many craft breweries, The Bruery began as a homebrewing adventure when Patrick Rue, his brother Chris, and his wife Rachel brewed their fast batch of beer. Patrick Rue continued to homebrew during his first year of law school, until he decided that he had a passion for brewing beer. The Bruery opened up in 2008, and since then, they have built a reputation around their experimental, and wild ales brewed with a Belgian flair. To read more, check out the Breuery's website.

Tonight's beer is part of The Bruery's "special collection." The Sour In The Rye is an Ale with around 40% rye malt base. This bad boy is brewed with wild yeast/bacteria, and aged away in an oak barrel for over a year.  

The Bruery Sour In The Rye

The beer pours a hazy brown color, with orange/gold tones in low light. This kicked up two fingers of orange tinted head, but the head quickly settled into a pure infection, pinky's covering of funk. In bright light this beer is a hazy gold-orange with peppery, uniform carbonation. The head is all funk, with an off-white/eggnog color. There's clingy lacing and all that fun stuff too.

This beer smells AMAZING. It instantly reminds me of the best stuff from Jolly Pumpkin and the Wild Ales from Jester King (Dear, my glassware). There's huge wood on the nose, with wet sauna, attic funk, lemon, lactic lemon funk, lactic tartness, and solid woody oak. The standout aroma here is the huge wood, wet sauna, and oak...followed by the tart, lactic funk. There's some rye spice as well, and maybe a hint of vinegar.

I need my glass/bottle to warm up a bit, but going into this a bit cold is revealing a ton of aggressive tartness, lactic tartness, lemon funk, and a biting wet sauna/woody finish. This tastes amazingly on point, and you get some subtle rye malt character as the backbone. This beer is jarringly sour, and that stays true as it warms a bit. There's plenty of lactic tartness, vinegar, tart apples, and pickled funk. There's also some buttery oak that emerges as this warms. The wood character is strong, with assertive tannin presence. There's some hints of leather as well. 

You would find this in my wheelhouse. This is my bag, baby. Yeah...okay...this one isn't the most complex beer out there, but the assertive sourness more than makes up for that fact. Palate depth is outstanding, complexity is just alright, and the mouthfeel is medium-light with wood tannins, buttery oak, and super aggressive sourness. But dat "wet sauna." Patent pending on that shit. You get big wood, lactic tartness, and some hints of sweetness up front; that rolls into buttery oak, more tartness, more wood, hints of rye, vinegar, sour grapes, Sour Patch Kids, sour apples; the back end is lingering wood, vinegar, rye...dry...

Rating: Divine Brew (4.5/5.0 Untappd)

I gotta go with a Light Divine Brew on this. This is super tasty, and a lot of fun. I'm about to pair this beer with a salami sandwich, and I think any cured lunch meat sandwich would go well with this beer. You could also go the cheese route, or pair this beer with some super raunchy Poutine or something. I know that's begging for heartburn an hour later, but who cares. The price is right for this beer too, at around...14 or 15 dollars a bottle? Get on this. 

Random Thought: Speaking of "don't care," Jay Cutler was totally on the radio station I frequently listen to that isn't ESPN. Love him or hate him, this is a big year for Cutler and I'm not gonna lie....I'm excited for football. Soon.