Ballast Point Sour Wench Blackberry Ale

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 7

Pours hazy caramel with a thick and persistent frothy beige head. Aroma delivers sweet and slightly tart blackberry plus malty and woody hop undertones. Flavor features blackberry, now more tart than sweet, as well as bolder malt and hop character. Mouthfeel yields OK body but peppy fizz. Pucker up to this wench.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 7

Not too sour, just a bit of tartness underlying the pretty nice blackberry. The fruit tastesd and smells natural, and it's a pretty good warm weather brew.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Tasted on tap at O’Briens. This fruit beer pours a medium purple color from the tap. Small sized white foamy head. The aroma is blackberry, malt and some funk. A medium bodied fruit beer. The malts are caramel and fruity. The hops are earthy. Nice blackberry flavors, very clean and semi-sweet. There is a touch of funk and tartness but not that much. Nice balance. Good carbonation. It’s very good as a fruit beer, not so much as a sour beer. The funk is there, but very subdued. Mouthfeel is full and round. Finish is clean and smooth. Aftertaste is slightly bitter with a slight touch of sourness.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 3 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 5 | Overall: 4

On tap at Liar’s Club. Pours with a crystal clear red body topped by a medium thick, pinkish head with some lacing. It smells like easter egg coloring...loaded with vinegar notes. The flavor is slightly sour yet a touch sweet with notes of vinegar and fruit. Light bodied, crisp and dry.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 7

Sampled on tap at the First Annual Stone Sour Fest, July 2007
This beer appears so different from your standard beer that it seems artificially colored; topped by a frothy, purple pink colored, two finger thick head. The beer is a clear, bright, cherry red color. This has a fruity nose to it that leans towards notes of strawberry, currant and some tart, berry-like notes, but it does not scream blackberry to me. Some berry skin aromatics add a touch of sharpness to the aroma, but there is really not much else noticeable here.

The beer is quite dry tasting and really not that tart at all. It is definitely packed with lots of, light tart, blackberry fruit character. I would almost guess that this is just a wheat beer that has had fruit added. It is not really sour at all and what tartness is here seems to be fruit derived. At the very most, the sour-bug character has just started. The body of this brew has a medium fullness to it, where some fruit derived tannins seem to add the palate coating character.

This is a weak example of a sour beer, though it is a decent fruit beer. If I had had this outside a sour beer festival, I might have enjoyed it more; I definitely would like to see a bit more sour funk here.