Fair State Brewing Cooperative provides some of the best sour and mixed-culture craft beers in this market. That is not opinion, it is a fact. This Saturday, January 28th, they will be releasing 3 different bottles of beers with tartness, fruit, and acidity that will make your palate as happy as a beagle after someone spilled the Chex Mix.

Bricoleur #4

This is a dry-hopped mixed culture beer that clocks in at a very easy 4.9% ABV. There are aromas and flavors of apricot, lime, and citrus. This is a beautiful cloudy beer that looks a lot like orange juice.

There is a bit of tartness at the beginning that transitions to sweetness and then ends on a dry note . As you sip this beer, it has the elements of a sweet grapefruit. Just when you think it is going to transition into pithy bitterness, it veers right into a nice dryness. The acidity in this beer is slight and along with the crisp effervescence of this beer, it is pleasantly refreshing.

This beer is a mix of 20% barrel-aged beer and 80% mixed-culture kettle saison. The result is an approachable and addicting beer that would be a wonderful introduction into this type of beer for even the most reticent drinker. This will be available in a 750ml bottle for $14.00.

U-Pick

This beer is the result of a bunch of people picking 280 lbs of raspberries, hence the name, U-Pick. A beautiful vibrant red color; this beer turns an empty tulip glass into a work of art. The aroma is full of raspberry aroma. The flavor is has a nice amount of tartness. The tartness then jump starts your salivary glands into working overtime. This is definitely a beer to try if you like a fruity and tart flavor in your beer. 750ml bottles of this will be available for $17.00 on Saturday.

Raspberry Roselle

Fair State took their Roselle, a hibiscus sour, and loaded it up with the perfect amount of raspberries. This beer won the best beer of the night at last year’s Friday session of Winterfest. This beer is ab solutely tremendous. The balance between the raspberry, tartness, acidity and mouthfeel is spot-on in this beer. You can get a 750ml bottle of this impressive beer for only $12.00 at the Bottle Drop! That is easily one of the best values for a beer in town!

All three of these beers are fantastic examples of why sours are really going to be popular moving forward. Fair State does a great job of using their sour beer catalog as an inventive way to showcase ingredients. Whether it’s Bricoleur #4 showcasing Hallertau in dry-hopped glory or raspberries in the U-Pick and Raspberry Roselle, these beers will resonate with sour zealots and first-time sour drinkers alike.

A word of advice if you are trying these beers for the first time; give each beer two sips before making a judgement. Your palate will take the first sip to calibrate and acclimate to the beer. Then, it will be ready to fully grasp and analyze the flavors and aromas in the second sip.

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