Upland Blueberry Lambic

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

Pours red-tinged amber with a thin but serviceable eggshell head. Aroma delivers tart fruity, berry and malty character. Flavor offers mouth-twisting tart fruit and berry supported by nice malty tone. Mouthfeel features decent fizz and body. Sing the blues-berries.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 5 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

Bottle shared by GMCC2181. A murky maroon-purple-ish pour but with a somewhat weak head/effervescence. Aroma was nice blueberries, some funk, some citrus. The flavor was slightly watery, lacking carbonation, nice blueberry flavor, done well, floral, some honey, funkiness also present. A pretty easy drinker as far as lambics go, an enjoyable experience. Thanks, Gabe, for sharing!

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

2008 Release; Sampled December 2008
This has a very slight carbonation and in order to preserve carbonation I poured pretty softly. I only saw a couple of lonely bubbles on top of the beer that quickly disappeared. The beer is actually quite dark, almost the color of a Merlot, it is quite clear and shows a bright, cranberry red hue when held up to the light. The aroma has notes of red-wine like fruit to it as well, but notes of oak and a light tartness are a bit more noticeable. The fruit aromatics are quite interesting though, there is almost a spiciness to the nose that seems to be contributed by the fruit as well as from the oak. Bright, blueberry fruit notes interweave seamlessly with spicy & buttery oak, a light mustiness, a definite dustiness, and perhaps a touch of musky Brettanomyces character. Spicy notes of woody black pepper, some leather and even a bit of tobacco contribute, along with the soft but striking fruit character, a definite vinous character to the nose. I really like the nose of this beer, I wouldn't have guessed that blueberries could do this (the spicy fruitiness is just so interesting).

Very lightly carbonated, really almost flat except for a slight prickle as it crosses the tongue. The beer retains just a touch of sweetness that creates a jammy, berry character reminiscent to a fruit red wine. The beer finishes with a spicy oak character, a bit of woody astringency and a soft tannic structure that keeps the beer lingering a bit on the tongue. The beer only has a light tartness to it, you can tell there is some other source of acid besides the fruit, but it is really fairly weakly acidic for a Lambic. That spicy character from the fruitiness is also here in the flavor, I want to say it is a spicy blueberry-skin character. This is almost pepper like in some ways, though definitely has a blueberry edge to it; it is sort of woody with an almost pine / rosemary character (though the oak certainly contributes to this as well); it almost has an artificial, blueberry-soda quality to it at times that is not objectionable at all. This has a nice body to it, both the oak and the residual fruit notes contribute. This is still quite quaffable, but it has some texture to it, that doesn't make the lack of carbonation overwhelmingly apparent.

If this were carbonated and had more of the traditional Lambic notes (acidity and funkiness) then it would be absolutely outstandingly awesome (runaway best from this years Upland Lambic release in all likelihood). The fruit adds such an interesting character to this brew, but without the CO2 and other traditional Lambic notes this is merely interestingly good. I am really digging the similarities to a fruity red wine. Definitely an experience and it is quite easy to polish of the bottle of this.