Magic Rock Brewing have been in experimental mode lately, augmenting their core range of hop-driven ales with forays into the far corners of European beer styles.
While we share some of Ed’s concerns about British brewers playing around with styles before they’ve really got to know them, Magic Rock’s Gose-style beer with grapefruit juice (unfortunately named ‘Salty Kiss’) is a front-runner for our beer of the year.
With that in mind, we were excited to come across Circus of Sour, their attempt at a Berliner Weisse. It isn’t flavoured with fruit and hasn’t been cross-bred with any other styles: it’s a more-or-less straight up attempt at a style which scarcely needs any tinkering with to shock British palates. Classical, but still quite mad to those of us brought up on brown bitter and Foster’s.
At 3.5%, Circus of Sour is a touch stronger than Berliner Kindl Weiss — a beer which, merely by outliving its competitors, has become the standard for the style. COS tasted much fresher than any bottled Kindl we’ve ever tried, and seemed a more vibrant shade of yellow. It has a sherbet, popping candy quality, reaching into the back of our mouths and tightening all the screws. Like a grown-up version of sour home-made lemonade, perhaps. (Oh — Pete Brown’s already said that.)
We enjoyed watching our not-especially-beer-geeky companions taste it. Each of them in turn expressed disgust, puckering their lips and scrunching their eyes, as if taking cough medicine. Then, a moment later, their eyes popped open: ‘Actually, that’s not bad.’ The consensus was that it was summery and truly refreshing.
Could Berliner Weisse, then, have more mainstream appeal than our instincts might lead us to expect?
We found it on sale at the Stormbird in Camberwell, South London — a craft beer bar which we remember from its days as an overcrowded, DJ-led ‘style bar’ called the Funky Monkey. Though some of the kegged US IPAs on sale seemed a bit flat and past their best, and wouldn’t go out of our way to visit, we liked the place well enough and will certainly pop in again if we find ourselves in the area.
2 replies on “A Cattle-Prod to the Taste Buds”
Glad they didn’t put fruit in it, as many American breweries do. Love to get the chance to try it.
Don’t know why it says “Bretted Berliner Weisse” on the label. Berliner Weisse is supposed to have Brettanomyces in it.
Do you think I might be able to persuade them to send me a bottle?
Not sure they bottle it, but you could ask. Stuart Ross is on Twitter as @magicrockstu and might be your best bet.