The Great Nebraska Beer Festival was a wet and wonderful affair in the parking lot of Nebraska Brewing Company in Papillion, Nebraska, and featured many local and national breweries. Over the next few days, I will be featuring different beers that I sampled at the festival, highlighting those that particularly stood out to me. I don't have awards to give, but if I did, these beers would be the winners. I will admit up front that many sour beers really were very interesting, and so several of these mini-reviews will be about some of the outstanding sour beers.
The first mini-review would be an award for the "Surprise of the Festival." I generally don't find "chain brewery" beer to be particularly interesting, but Rock Bottom-Des Moines brewmaster Eric Sorensen has changed my mind with his An Cat Dubh, a sour/wild ale checking in at an easy drinking 4.75% alcohol. It's a dry irish stout barrel aged three years that has two strains of brett yeast working it and then blended with fresh stout, turning it into a delicious concoction. It is a slightly roasty, slightly chocolately, tart and floral beer; not overly sour but definitely different and worth a try!
Of course, brett beers are crazy difficult to deal with, as is explained in an article by MetroActive and by WYeast Labs. In a brief discussion, John McDonald of Boulevard Brewery explained to me how difficult it is to control brett yeasts within a brewery; it's always a fear of brewers that the brett yeast strains will get out and damage other beers. So it's quite an accomplishment for Rock Bottom Brewery. Congratulations to the brewery for a fine, fine beer. Cheers!
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