I’m stacking up some local beer reviews to make a set of pages for each individual brewer in Chicago. Meantime, I have some beers that have been sent to me for my comment. Like this one.
Lagunitas Brewing Co. made this one at their Sonoma County Farmhouse pilot brewery. This release goes by the simple name “Brett Stout.” It’s a strong beer at 11.3% abv, fermented with Brettanomyces yeast and Lactobacillus bacteria on top of their regular house ale yeast. The fermented beer is stored in Sonoma County red-wine barrels for up to four years.
This is very different from any high octane stout beer I can think of. The nose has just a bit of brett funk, with no dark roastiness of your usual stout. In fact, it has just a light fruity nose, maybe with a little red chili pepper. It’s a little lighter than the midnight black of a stout as well. I even spotted a little purple in the pour.
There’s a sort of frothy effervescence when I drink it, like the gentle fizz of a funked up Belgian beer. The funkiness itself has been gentled out, as if this has indeed spent four years in a barrel. So not a bourbon barrel beer, but a wine barrel one, which brings up a lot of oak, just a little vanilla, and the tinge of a red wine. So it’s spritzy like a Belgian brett beer, but light and fruity. I can’t think of it as a stout at all. Which I think is what they intended.
A beer this strong might be offered for dessert, but I’m calling this with a pre-dinner cheese tray. And it’s been aged enough, I think it would be okay to drink as you find it.
