Mikkeller It's Alive! (White Wine barrel Lychee edition)

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

Pours a pretty, slightly dark, slightly hazy golden amber with a VERY thick buttery off-white head. The bottle I got fizzed like nobody’s business, so have a towel handy! Aroma is average strength, fruity, yeasty and somewhat sweet with a malty hint. Flavor is mainly fruity, sweet but not too sweet, and has malt and yeast hints plus just a bit of butterscotch. Texture is fairly fizzy, leaving a rather persistent tingle on the tongue and lips.

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

Here I almost just want to copy and paste my regular "Its Alive" review and add the additions: More head, slightly more fruit.... but really its a beer full of underripe berries, champagne, touch of tart and sour, maybe some really really really underripe nectarine. Light bodied, tight, well constructed with no crazy extremes of flavour. Fantastic. I agree with mmmmmbeer, as it warms the white wine barrel aging shows itself, but in a way that cask ales in england can hint at wood, not the way a barrel is usually used on stouts, really subtle, really rounding, really mellowing and really constructive. Champgne, dry, supple, full, the adjectives could go on. A truly great hybrid of the best parts of sours, lambic, champagne and apple cider, while not really being any of those things. Awesome!

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

Honey brown body with a 1" tan crown resting ontop........looks normal. Aroma just hit me with a huge fist full of sour, big Belgian yeast, slight bit of barn, celery salt? Do I smell oakey white wine??? maybe. Taste is good! Big sour oak, with a sweetness that I will assume is from the lychee. There is so much going on here but I can't nail any of it down. Sour is fading and being replaced with a thick fruitiness. White wine is shining through now when warm. This beer is epic but i can't even describe a tenth of it.

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

the better of the 2 versions of IA we had last night. Still not a huge fan of the white wine barreling (scored a 3.6 as opposed to a 4.1 for the base beer), but this is a step back in the right direction. the lychee doesn't really add any tartness due to the beer already being more tart/sour than the fruit added, but the extra complexity and slight sweetness is a nice touch, and actually mellows the wine character a bit.