New Glarus Serendipity

Brewed By: New Glarus Brewing Company in New Glarus, Wisconsin

Purchased: 750ml bottle bought at Woodman's in Kenosha, WI; 2014 (2013 Vintage/Bottle)

Style/ABV: Fruit Beer, 4.0%??? 

Reported IBUs: ?

It's snowy and cold tonight, so let's be contrarian and drin a refreshing fruit beer. About New Glarus:

New Glarus is the rare, gorgeous "Midwest" brewery, founded in 1993 by Deborah Carey, the first woman to found and operate a brewery in the United States. She raised the capital for the start-up as a gift to her husband, Dan Carey, who is New Glarus' brewmaster and co-owner. Dan Carey has a long history working in the brewing industry, including an apprenticeship at a brewery near Munich, Germany and a job as the Production Supervisor for Anheuser-Busch. The brewery began as an abandoned warehouse using old brewpub equipment. In 1997, Dan Carey purchased coper kettles from a brewery in Germany. In May 2006, New Glarus opened their new (current) facility on a hilltop in the village of New Glarus. The facility looks like a Bavarian village, and is gorgeous. The expansion has allowed the brewery to continue to increase their production, and expand their operations. For more information, check out their brewery page or Wikipedia. 

The Serendipity is a fruit beer brewed with cherries, apples, and cranberries. This fruit beer is aged in oak and spontaneously fermented. Blah blah New Glarus blah Fruit Beer blah you know the drill.

In low light, the beer pours into a murky/hazy reddish-brown color, kicking up three fingers of lofty, amber/red head. In bright light the beer takes on a darker red/orange color, and you can see some dotted carbonation rising in the hazy body. Head retention is nice, with tight lacing. Bright light confirms the reddish/orange/amber head. 

The aroma is where this beer shines. You get huge tart but not sour apples, cranberry, and big cherry. There's some pastry/pie filling, with cherry pie, apple pie, and some wet rain, wet hay, and barnyard. The fruit notes in this beer are vibrant and fresh, and the nose is inviting. This beer is like a mash up of the New Glarus Apple Ale with their Belgian Red. 

The taste: you get blasted with huge apple and cherry fruit...the whole beer has underlying tart (but not sour) barnyard funk, wet rain, and hay. There's big cherry pie filling, apple orchard and apple cider, hints of bready pastry, and underlying currants and herbal fruitiness. I'm getting freshly cut apples, and some light apple and cherry tannin. Really refreshing and good and vibrant.

This is another humdinger from the New Glarus fruit beer portfolio. This beer is medium-light bodied, with good palate depth and low complexity. There's a lot of carbonation and really enjoyable tartness. Yeah...this one is kind of sweet and one-dimensional, and it sort of rides that line of being a beer or being a cider or whatever. I don't know. I don't care...this is delicious. You get big cherry and apple up front; that explodes into sweet cherry and apple pie filling, with currants and hints of pastry, and some hay/barnyard funk; the back end dials up some lingering funk and malts, and finishes a bit abrupt and dry. The cranberry is present, as a tart character, and as cranberry-apple, crabapple, and cherry. 

Rating: Above-Average (4.5/5.0 Untappd)

I'm feeling a Strong Above-Average on this. This absolutely nails the cherry/apple/cranberry thing, and it dials up plenty of juicy fruit sweetness, with tons of mild funk and barnyard. It's your typical New Glarus fruit beer...and it's good. Food pairings: fruit pies, fruit cakes, ice cream, pork with apple sauce, and Thanksgiving. Really solid and affordable (at around $10 a bomber), this would be perfect in the Autumn, Spring, or Summer.

Random Thought: This really isn't a Winter beer...so tomorrow night we are going to get back into beers appropriate for this shitty weather.