Cascade Apricot Ale

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 10 | Overall: 9

On tap @ Cascade Barrel House. Pale peachy golden pour, tight bubbly head, some lacing. Tart tart tart peachy aroma and upfront flavors, lightly funked, but nicely peachy and apricot sweet and tartness. Decadently delicious.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

this one manages to be a seriously fruity beer (smells like putting your nose in a bag of dried apricots) and a nice sour ale. this would make an amazing summer brew. oaky, quite tart all the way through, with loads of fruit flavor but only a hint of sweetness.

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

Tasted at the Thursday RBSG Events on 7/9/09. This sour/fruit beer pours a muddy orange gold color from a 750 ml bottle. Medium to small sized white foamy head. The aroma is apricot and sweet. with a touch of tartness and funk. A medium bodied sour ale. The malts are fruit and semi sweet. Lots of apricot flavors, kind of semi-sweet. The hops are earthy. A touch of tartness and funk, the fruit is semi-sweet, a nice combination. Mouthfeel is full. Finish is crisp and dry, with a tart fruit finish. Aftertaste is slightly tart.

Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 9

Sampled June 2009
A solid pour into my large Tripel Karmeliet glass produces a three finger thick, light tan colored head that slowly subsides in to a persistent, dense, creamy layer of foam that resides atop the beer. The beer is a bright copper hue that shows a brilliantly clear, beautiful, orange-gold hue when held up to the light. The aroma smells of fresh, floral, ripe apricots, not quite as exuberant in volume as an actual rip apricot, but it definitely captures the essence quite well. The aroma has me picturing myself biting into a perfectly ripe apricot that is sweet and tart with a bit of tannic character in the skin. There is not a whole lot of other, more beery notes going on here, but the fleshy, skin scented apricot notes are so alive and fresh here that I am finding the nose quite interesting. The nice thing is that apricots are not a in your face fruit, so even though they are the dominant note here in the nose it is still not a loud, in-your face apricot character. After the beer has warmed up for a bit there is perhaps a touch of dough-like malt in the nose, but it is still quite subtle if not down right fleeting.

The beer is lightly tart tasting and is infused with a floral, almost flower-nectar essence of apricots. The beer finishes with a touch of a tannic bit as well as a wisp of higher alcohols and some spiciness that seems to be influenced by spicy oak notes and a touch of wood-character. The finish doesn’t shake the infused apricot essence that perfumes the whole of this beer though. The lactic tartness, while present and noticeable, really serves to accentuate the fruit character here; it melds with the fresh fruit notes and intertwines with it in such a way that one really just imagines the tartness of a biting into a fresh, perfectly ripe, apricot. There is a bit of a bite to the finish here, a bitterness from the hops used in the Tripel. There are also some warming alcohol notes here in the finish, but they are quite mellow for a Tripel, more contributing to the general spiciness than anything. There is just enough residual sweetness here to boost the fruit flavor just that much more; I wouldn’t describe this as a sweet beer, though it isn’t bone dry either. The finish is quite dry, but still has a floral, flower-nectar note to it that lingers on in the palate along with a clean, peppery spice note.

The second pour has a bit more haziness to it, which corresponds with a touch of a yeast bite. I really like the balance between floral, fruity apricot flavors and the spicy, bitter, peppery finish, these notes balance together quite well and even lead into the next sip, thus continuing the cycle of flavors. The body is light enough to be dangerously quaffable, it is well within the Tripel range though (for instance it is not as light as something like a Duvel that is at the same strength). A hint of phenolics become noticeable and they subtly tie in with the spicy finish. I like how the oak plays a truly supporting role here, it adds to the tannic structure and the spiciness of the finish, but isn’t overtly noticeable.

This seems to have rounded & softened up a bit since I tasted this back in October. It is much more fruit focused, or at least some of the sharper phenolic notes seem to have aged out such that the fruit is much more noticeable. It is still not overly funky, in fact it is arguably not very complex (except that it does achieve a complex apricot character), but it is such a great use of this particular fruit; it is certainly the quintessential apricot beer that I have had. As a show case for the use of fruit in beer it easily out shines the sticky sweet New Glarus stuff by a long mile. If you like apricots and I mean you are a stickler for only enjoying fresh, abundantly ripe ones, then this is the beer for you.

Sampled GABF 2008
8/6/6/8/7
Total: 3.5

The beer pours with a pale gold color that is quite clear. It is topped by a pale, white colored ring of a head with a careful pour. The aroma is quite fruity, as expected, but also has as significant floral and even almost herbal edge to it in the finish. The apricot is noticeable, but not overly expressive. There is a light sourness to the aroma as well and the fruit notes remind me of a mix of apricot and Meyer lemon.

The beer is quite dry, pretty light bodied, definitely tart and has a nice aromatic-flavor of apricots; the apricot character is fleshy, almost juicy in quality. This finishes with some phenolic notes in the finish that adds a light, biting sharpness and there is also a bit of astringency. The phenolics contribute a mix of notes of curing plastic and a pale smokiness, though these are kept fairly muted. This is quite drinkable and really hides its alcohol quite well, I wouldn’t have guessed that the base beer, before souring and fruit, was a Tripel. It could use a bit more complexity (whether in the form of more wild character or perhaps just malt and fruit complexity wouldn’t matter too much) to be truly great, but it is quite drinkable and tasty.