Beer Review: Black & Blue Tastee (The Veil Brewing Co.)
not.
Looking in my fridge after a long day of work on Memorial Day while everyone else was out picnicking and enjoying a beautiful sunny day, I was thrown all over the world in the casino working numerous different games, getting yelled at by numerous different types of guests, and just needing something to drink, like a usual night after work. This time instead of grabbing something new and familiar from the front of the beer fridge I decided to see what all might be lurking in the back of the fridge, and to my surprise, I found this.
I had traded/bought a four pack of this straight from The Veil Brewing Company over a year ago (according to my stats, my first time having it was on 2.23.18, and this is currently now 5.24.19). So this is definitely going into the “science experiment” beer drinking category. And have no fears as a review, this is going to be based on the beer when I had it the original time with my original notes on it, as well as how it is *NOW*.
These were gushers when first released. Meant to be drank pretty much the day of. And even then there typically was still fermentation in the can and a release when poured the day of/after/soon-after.
The first time I had this, I had it 3 days after its canning release, and the fermentation in can wasn’t too extensive, and I had kept it cold (after receiving it cold) so as not to let it warm and allow the yeast to do more work inside the can. Even still, there was a bit of foaming and loss, but nothing horrific and nothing more than a good sip’s worth.
So diving into the beer, we have:
Beer: Black & Blue Tastee
Brewery: The Veil Brewing Co.
Style: Sour – Ale
ABV: 5.5%
IBU: No IBU
Untappd Write-Up: Tastees are kettle sour ales clocking in at 5.5%. We add a ton of lactose to these and brew them intentionally to be fuller bodied to try and replicate a fruit smoothie. We then select two different fruits and bomb them out in secondary fermentation at just shy of double fruited goses levels of fruit. For the third fruit blend in this series, we decided to use Blackberry and Blueberry. This one is literally like an adult fruit smoothie.Tastes like grandma’s blueberry pie filling with some acidity to it.
If replicating a smoothie was the goal, it was accomplished with 100% accuracy. For those who do that dreaded “work out” stuff and drink smoothies and all kind of muscle-building and dieting concoctions that require blenders can attest to, this is exactly what the pour looked like right out of the can after the foaming settled. Likewise, that’s how it tasted, a sour version of a blackberry and blueberry fruit smoothie with just a hint of alcohol in it, enough to give you the slightest buzz after a full-drink.
For those with lactose intolerance (your gracious reviewer included) this is definitely loaded with lactose and will result in the ‘results’ therein. The sour of the beer is never complete full on pucksucker but it definitely has that sour flavor and the slight bitterness to it that comes with the kettle souring process.
The true hero of the beer though is the blackberry and blueberry base. They are a perfect combination, especially for a sour, and even moreso for one that is to be an “adult smoothie”. Always been a huge fan of blackberry and blueberry flavors, in beer, in food, in pretty much everything, and the two work so well together. Especially with the slight acidity of the kettle souring that really brings out the flavors of the two berries.
So, now onto the “science experiment” portion of drinking a beer 1+ year old that was potentially a “fermentation bomb” only a week old. …Well, it definitely continued stayed that way. It obviously hit some point where it stopped fermenting, and being left cold in a fridge for this entire time it never got to the true temperatures needed to really make the yeast do what it does, but it was much more of a ‘bomb’ than when I originally had the first three. I would say roughly 45-55% of the beer was lost to foam and carbonation and overflowing issues (thus why I opened it in the backyard and far away from anything I didn’t want stained purplish).
As for the aroma and colorization and other visuals it held the same as it did in it’s release.
The taste was still spot on to what I remembered, though more sour now with the year on it, and more acidic. It went from being tart to full sour and pucksucker, but no bad aftertaste that “older” beers sometimes get.
The year of sitting in the fridge didn’t harm it or really make it worse and it was still pretty much the same beer as I originally had a year plus ago.
My Untappd rating: ****.75
Global Untappd rating: 4.3 (as of 5.27.19)
-B. Kline
