Beer – #923 – Petrus – Aged Pale

Petrus Aged Pale – a medal winner in New Zealand. New brewer to me too, and a new cap for the cap jar that is now about full, I must have another shake to make some space.

Aged?

This is a 330ml bottle that is beer of 7.3% ABV, which is about 219 calories a serve, this would be 1.9 standard drinks in NZ

Petrus Aged Pale – Brewed by Bavik-De Brabandere in the Style: Sour/Wild Ale and that happens in Harelbeke, Belgium

Aged? Many beers have a long maturation, but this one has only 24-36 months in oak barrels.
Pale? This beer has an old gold to bronze color, rather than the burgundy more common in the breweries of West Flanders.

This is the ‘mother beer,’ used in various quantities to blend with the other Petrus beers, and to give them their unique and very distinctive taste.

This mother beer is rather sour with a bite like the best Brut Champagnes.

Aged Gracefully

Petrus Aged Pale is a 100% beer from our oak foeders which has aged for 18-24 months. Michael Jackson, the beer hunter, chose the name in the late 1990s – and he was the first to sell this beer in his beer clubs. Today, it is still the reference for sour beers in the US. Petrus Aged Pale has won multiple gold medals in beer competitions worldwide. Moreover, ever since the start of the brewery, the beer has been used as a blending-beer with other beers to give them fresh, slightly sour flavors and aroma’s

A connoisseur’s delight!

So, What could possibly go wrong?

A cider like aroma on opening, and that’s to be expected.

Very pale yellow pour with a smart firm head that is stark white. Aroma the same sourness, but also a bit peppery and that caught me throat.

It is sharply sour, and awful dry, which is possibly that oak effect, leave the tongue really flat.

I don’t know, I think this talks a big beer, and delivers something somewhat less. It really is a bit of a story of tow halves, the up front sourness and the competing dryness.

Not that it doesn’t have a sweetness about it, but for me it’ a bit uncomfortable, but then you know I don’t usually gush over sour beers of any kind, mostly, unless they’re worthy, and this one for me sadly isn’t.

The pdubyah-o-meter rates this as 7 of its things from the thing. I get why it might be the baseline, age and consistency will do that, but this didn’t sit comfortably with me for that sourness and that sharp thudding dryness But then you can’t like every beer can you?

The double dip review

Where did I get it? The New World stores have them, it being an award winner of theirs.
Am I enjoying it? Not so much.
Would I have another? No, lucky I didn’t go the multipack.
Would I share with a friend on a porch and set the world to rights? I couldn’t put this forward over other sour beers as a marker, so no.

Music for this: ” Low Roar ” with ” Once in a long, long while… ” on Spotify

The Icelandic band.

SOUR/WILD ALE

Sour ale is a broad spectrum of wild ales, from the fruity and acetic Flanders Red Ales and Oud Bruins, to the experimental ales gaining popularity in the United States which use lactobacillus, brettanomyces and pediococcus in new and wild ways