Upland Sour Ales- Kiwi

This beer is in category 28C, Wild Specialty beer. It fits the bill perfectly; it’s sour, funky, contains fruit, and was aged in barrels. If you look up the category description, this is exactly where this beer belongs.

Upland Kiwi pours a pale yellow and is quite hazy. The head is white, fizzy and has poor retention.  As far as sour ales go, I would prefer it to be a bit clearer. The aroma is quite nice with a little bit of lactic sourness initially. The malt aroma is mostly bread and some light honey. I don’t really detect anything in terms of hop aroma at all. As for the fruit, kiwi is a delicate fruit and I did not expect much to come through in the aroma and I was right. Behind the lactic sourness, a very light barnyard funk, and the malt there was not much room for kiwi to shine though. However, some of woodiness of the barrel did come through. The flavor matches the aroma fairly closely, with a lightly sweet bread malt base. Again, hop flavor is absent but the bitterness is in there just enough to balance the moderate tartness. The kiwi is noticeable in the flavor which is good. It’s on the lower side, but it come across as a lightly tropical note that fits the tart aspect nicely. The wood aged character is very low and almost undetectable in the flavor, it did come through as the beer warmed. The beer is medium bodied, very effervescent, and tart. There is a very low astringent character that I believe comes from the barrel.

All in all it’s a very solid fruited sour. I wish the fruit was more prominent in the aroma, but it was redeemed in the flavor. The balance of malt sweetness, sourness, and low bitterness was spot on and enjoyable. In the end I’d say if you picked this up, I doubt you would be disappointed.