Beer Review: Sour Blueberry (Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company)

Check-mark another brand new brewery from some imaginary list I have running in my head. (There’s no way I could keep track of all of the breweries in Pennsylvania, yet alone the country, or the world to keep some kind of ‘brewery’ list in my head. Plus space up there is pretty limited as it is!) But this is a new brewery for me, and I must say I was not disappointed by this. Hopefully the others from my beer mail from Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company will be just as good.

If you’ve read my previous blog post / beer review, I received a “porch bomb” on Friday from Aiken South Carolina, containing a bunch of delicious and tasty looking beers. Beers from Fonta Flora, Westbrook, Edmund’s Oast, Wild Leap, Heist Brewing, Creature Comforts, and Pretoria Fields. I’ve so far gotten to dive into two; the Vanilla Ice Cream Stout by Wild Leap Brew Co., and now this Sour Blueberry by Edmund’s Oast.

So I definitely got a nice collection of breweries and a lovely assortment of beers to drink down and review up. Looking forward to tackling all of them here for the blog. (Somebody’s gotta do it right? I mean… they ain’t gonna review themselves are they?)

Friday night watching the Phillies and house sitting my parent’s place I drank down and dug the Vanilla Ice Cream Stout by Wild Leap Brew Co. You can check that review out here: Vanilla Ice Cream Stout. Last night after work and catching the end of the Phillies game (two wins in a row, is the world coming to an end?!) I got to tackle the Sour Blueberry from Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company.

Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company is a micro brewery from Charleston South Carolina. According to Untappd they have 142 unique beers to their name, with a global rating of 3.88 out of 79,638 Ratings. Their Untappd bio reads: “Edmund’s Oast Brewing Co. is a craft brewery, taproom, and restaurant located at 1505 King Street, Charleston, SC in the Pacific Box & Crate development. Quality first. The rest will follow.” They have done some collaborations, one of which is a Peanut Butter stout I also got in my beer mail package with Westbrook. So let’s see what their first beer for me has to offer….

Beer: Sour Blueberry
Brewery: Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 6.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: (Blank)

I absolutely love blueberries….when done right in a beer. Theres been many blueberry beers I’ve had over the years. DuClaw’s Funk’d, that horrible In-Bev garbage one (umm…. Sea Dogs or whatever that crap is called?), a mead from Evolution, and several other smaller craft breweries or one-time deals from Troegs or other places. And sadly, blueberries in beer can be a complete hit or miss. Not much of a middle-ground, ‘fudge’, area on this. It’s either 90%-100% or 0% and no “eh, its ok” middle.

I think its because its easy for blueberries to go into that ‘funk / skunk’ sour rather than that ‘tart’ sour tasting area. And that there is only a small window of opportunity for it, before it teeters and goes from tart to funk / skunk. I could be wrong (never brewed with blueberries, just grow them, enjoy the taste of them, and love beer, so thats the extent of my knowledge).

Appearance is a lovely light purplish almost pinkish fruity look. Typical for fruited sours that use berries like blueberries or raspberries or strawberries (though blackberries tend to give a darker purplish hue). A good rich foamy head as soon as it pours, so well carbonated but not too crazily carbonated like The Veil’s Black and Blue Tastee or similar beers.

Aroma is fruity, blueberry, and exactly as the name of the beer would lead you to believe it should smell. This is usually where you can get an idea of how the blueberry in the beer might be, and in this case, you can tell its going to be the lighter, the tart, the ‘good to drink’ style blueberry, rather than the funk, ripe, potent blueberry in some of the bad blueberry beers.

And luckily taste lines up with that. Tart, right amount of carbonation, nothing bittering, nothing cloying, nice light mouthfeel, refreshing, tasty. Sippable not crushable, but definitely enjoyable. You could sit and have a few, over an extended time, this isn’t really in the pound it and keep drinking mood, it has a complexity and with the tartness its good to just sip while doing things or watching TV. A good fire-side beer especially in these fall times. A little sediment on the bottom that probably best not to drink, but completely and overall a good beer.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.93 (as of 9.29.19)

A great tasty beer to house sit with and enjoy on #NationalDrinkBeerDay. I didn’t know we really needed a ‘day’ for this, as that just sounds like every day to me, but hey, whatever, gives me an excuse to drink I suppose, so I’ll take it!

-B. Kline