Beer Review: The Bruery Sourrento (2014)

Brewery: The Bruery
Beer: Sourrento
Style: American Wild Ale
ABV: 7.7%
Character: Inspired by the spirit drink, limoncello, this beer is brewed with lemon zest and fresh vanilla beans.
Ratings at the time of Review: BA: 92 | RB: 92
Metal Connection: SPAWN OF POSSESSION – Sour Flow

BeerMetalDude Rating: 5/5

Well, here is a review that I let slip through my fingers for a few months. Originally, this was supposed to be posted back in December 2015. Ah well, better late than never. There is a newer version of this beer now released through the Bruery Terreux brand. When I drank this one here, it was aged about a year. My good buddy from Cali, Jorge Espinoza (animebeers.com) sent me this beer, and I am grateful for our friendship and beer trading. I have had some amazing beers that are not normally available here in TX. Bruery/Bruery Terreux beers are now available in TX, but not the entire line-up yet. We’ll see what becomes available as time moves on.

As usual, The Bruery presents us with a 750ml bottle with a crest shield-like label. The colors used on this one really represents the beer to it’s fullest, in my opinion. The combination of yellow and bright green as the backdrop really works with the black lettering and the red lines and Bruery logo.

I poured this beer into a Jester King teku glass. Sourrento poured a clear golden color with a touch of an orange tint. Initial pour caused a 3/4 of an inch white foamy head, which quickly disappeared, leaving no lacing down the glass.

The vanilla bean is strong and dominant, followed closely by a scent of lemon zest. Smells like a lemon meringue pie. Other scents picked up on are oak wood, white bread, white wine grapes, hints of lime, sweet milk. Overall sourness layers over all the other smells, causing a small hint of spearmint aroma. Lemon meringue pie lingers in the nose.

As with most sour beers, the sourness hits the palate first, but once it mellows, there tart acidic lemon, lime, heavy vanilla bean, milk, whipped cream, oak wood, white wine grapes, spearmint, fresh white bread, lemon meringue pie comes right to mind again with the flavor of this beer. Lemon pie with a hint of spearmint is in the aftertaste.

The body is medium-heavy in size with a smooth, and creamy mouthfeel with low carbonation, and a zesty tingly sour feeling with a dry finish.

Overall, I knew this one was going to be a winner. I saw the scores given on Beer Advocate and RateBeer, and read a lot o n what people were saying, and I went into this beer with high expectations. The Bruery delivered on those expectations and more. This was a complete dessert beer. It was sweet, sour, and full of flavor. The fact that this beer could be so reminiscent of a lemon meringue pie was simply amazing. I’m hoping that nothing changed from this version to the newest one out there, and I highly recommend to all of you to buy this beer as soon as you see it available near you.

Metal Connection: Sweden’s Spawn of Possession has always been one of y personal favorite bands in the Technical Brutal Death Metal sub genre. When their debut album, Cabinet came out in 2003, it was a no-brainer that the album would be released on the U.S. label, Unique Leader Records, which is ran by members of the Technical Brutal Death Metal band, Deeds of Flesh. There was a certain style that Unique Leader picked up, and Spawn of Possession definitely fell right into place there. By the time SoP released their second full length album, Noctambulant, in 2006, the band had jumped ship to Neurotic Records. The album was also released by Willowtip Records in the same year. Our Metal Connection here is a song from the Noctambulant album. I chose the song “Sour Flow” for obvious reasons, the song title had some similarity to the beer name here. This song starts off with a nice epic heavy and acoustic intro that leads right into the technical riffs we love from SoP. This song remains slow paced and heavy throughout, never getting into the grind beat driven technical brutal style of a lot of their other songs. “Sour Flow” ends with a nice jazzy outro with some amazing bass guitar work. This is definitely a good song to jam to while drinking on a unique beer such as Sourrento. Feel free to do so, and let me know what you think, if you are not dead from having your mind blown!