I LIKE confronting people who tell me they don't like beer. Frankly, it's like saying they don't like music. Lagers, as we've come to know them, are to beer as The Spice Girls are to music. There's a whole world of beer out there. Recently the cool kids have embraced big hops, chasing the aroma and flavour of cannabis' cousin, but this week I'm reviewing something a little more fringe - acid jazz if you will.
Lean Lamb from Mussel Inn in Takaka, Nelson, is one of the first generation of New Zealand's sour beers. Presumably a play on words from the great Belgian Lambics, Lean Lamb is a micro-batch soured in a bourbon barrel for months before being bottled in very limited releases. Unlike its Belgian cousins, it's devoid of the crazy funkiness derived from open fermenters in Olde Worlde breweries, but is clean and refreshing. Andrew Dixon from Mussel Inn explains that the original sours were flawed beers that were blended back with fruit and other beers to make them palatable.
"Over time they have become accepted and even embraced as a style. They'd laugh if they knew the lengths we go to replicate their mistakes."
There's no denying it messes with your head if you're a die-hard Tui fan, but if you're open minded and want to try something different this is a great and undeniably gentle introduction to the new wave of sour craft beers.
Thanks to Paul Croucher for this week's review. Find yourself a Lean Lamb Sour Ale at LiquorLand stores.
