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We're on episode three and Craig and Jason here, Reeling it back in from Belgium and we're bringing it back stateside, but even closer yet, we're bringing it back to New York state. 

Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna travel down towards the city, but not quite. We're going to, , the Hudson Valley to a Hudson Valley brewing company.

I wanted to pick one of their sours because. This is one, you know, we were talking a little bit before we, , started recording about, you know, those that know, really know and adore this brewery, this brewery, but there's a lot of people that just don't know about it. And even, like, if you go on their, , social media, they don't have as many followers as they thought they might have.

Because, you know, people that have this beer or will bring this beer to a bottle share, , everybody enjoys it. It's, you know, sought after. They started shipping a lot. And since it's New York State, you can ship within New York State. So you can, you can get a little bit more readily available since The pandemic, but it used to be like, Oh man, they've got some Hudson Valley or there's one of the places that, you know, when you're doing a road trip, you would stock up when you would go here.

And, you know, I wanted to bring this one up again. You know, when I pick a beer for these episodes, I want a lot of talking points without going too far down the rabbit hole because you know, we're, we're bears, not rabbits and we're barely getting started. So we are, , you know, we're going to enjoy what's called stray light.

By Hudson Valley Brewery and it is a sour IPA. with blueberry and lemon. So if we, you know, recap the series so far, we had a goose, which is a blend of straight lambics from the Brussels region of Belgium. So It was a very just straightforward kind of tart, acidic, sour, and funky. And now we're continuing, you know, from traditional to today.

, our last step forward to today was, , red by Petrus or Petrus red. And that was a Flemish.  With a lot of cherries added. So we just had a single note. So here's something that's a little bit more of that, like blended flavor. There's a blueberry and lemon in here, and then it's hopped. That's what kind of makes it a sour IPA.

So even on the can, they tell you. that, , you know, it's marketed as a sour IPA. You don't see this as a,  fruited sour, which most are, you know, fruited sours, heavily fruited sours. So, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna get into a heavily fruited sour to round this series out. But for the, the, the, the third quartile, or the, the start of the second half of this, Series I wanted to get into something that was okay.

Now. We're we're into fruited sour So to me whether it's a sour IPA or fruited sour, you know, depending on who you talk to  You know some will  you know, there's not two different categories or two styles, at least yet, where there's a sour IPA style and a fruited sour style. It's basically, there is, you know, sour beers  and there's non sour beers.

And then there are beers that are, you know, meant to have fruit in them. So like a fruited sour, and that goes against, you know, like, or goes up against any, any type of beer that has. Like a spice, herb, fruit kind of additive to it. So if you talk about like spruce tips or even, you know, sometimes, , I think pumpkin beers can fall in the same category.

So it's, there's a need to kind of split this off, but, , you know, This is, this is a non barrel aged sour beer that has a fruit additive to it, and whether you call it a fruited sour or a sour IPA, because usually, no matter what, you have some sort of hops in there to kind of balance it. The bitterness balances the, the sweetness from the fruit,  but it's marketing.

A lot of times people think if you slap IPA on there, it's going to sell better because IPA, , you know, especially hazy IPAs now. , them and, and even just West Coast or American IPAs are the, the biggest selling styles  and you, you call it a sour IPA. So what actually is a sour IPA? Well, in some camps, it's a, it's an IPA that's been soured.

And to me, that's, you know, it's, it's brewed to be an IPA. And then there's a souring agent or then it's, you know, it's, it's made to be sour, but it's got that underlying, Hey, I'm an IPA. Once you start adding fruit and you start doing, getting away from that true, just kind of showcase of hops. Then to me, you know, It's a fruited sour.

, so I typically am like sour. IPA okay, fruited sour. I know, I know who you are, but I've had some sour ips and I'm like, wow, this is just like a hoppy and sour beer. , this one, I think, , as I crack it and start to pour it,  I think you'll find, , you know, you, you'll have to let me know if you think it's more IPA.

Or more of a fruited sour.  And the reason I went this route is, you know, this is not going to be super thick. This is one of those that's going to have a lot of fruit flavor. It's going to be sour. So there's a lot of tartness,  sourness, but then there's going to hopefully be a nice balance. I say, hopefully more so for the style, not for this beer.

I, , this is one of those breweries that I talk about where I really trust the style. Or sorry, trust the brewery. So I will basically trust anything they can throw my way and I will Continue until you know, I realize whoa, they don't make  You know  this style of beer so well, so I'm gonna shy away from that and stick to where they're popular So blueberry lemon sour IPA.

I mean it pours kind of like , the mix of a blueberry and a lemon. So it's not a very dark blue. It's kind of got this, , bordering on a light pink. So it's kind of like a bluish pink. , and I think that's just, you know,  The, the lemon and the actual base beer,  toning down the blue, plus it's probably, you know, just not a ton of blueberry in there versus something that's heavily fruited.

But one thing that, you know, this has over the other guys was it poured with a lot thicker of a head. Let me give it another little swirl so I can get a nice sniff on this and, you know, created a nice little head on it again.  Ooh, this has got a nice,  very, very effervescent. Yes. Unlike the, , the, the red by Petrus that was just immediately cherry.

This almost is more like a blueberry pie or, you know, it's got subtle notes of blueberry, not so much like, Hey, we just smashed up a bunch of blueberries.  So, ,  that's on the nose. I'm trying to see if I can get anything else. 

I get, I'm getting both here. I got the blueberry and the lemon here. 

Yeah. As I go in for my second sniff, I'm doing a little bit of a drive by now. 

I definitely get that like slight touch of lemon. , and it's like a sweet lemon, kind of like a candied lemon aroma. And, , again, that blueberry is just nice and subtle, more like a blueberry muffin than like fresh ripe blueberries. A little blueberry 

with like a warhead, like a lemon warhead. 

There you go. 

So you take a sip. That's a nice bite. 

Yeah. Tart. You definitely know there's some, some lemon in there.  But , answer 

that question. More sour than IPA. There you go. Yep. So 

this is one of those ones where  as you let the, the flavors  sit on your palate  You know, you can also, it's got a little bit thicker of a mouthfeel.

I think I saw that there was lactose on this. So for those of you that are lactose intolerant, I would always check your sours because a lot of them do add lactose and this one does.  Lactose is, you know, milk sugar, kind of like a milk stout. That's a little bit thicker and creamier. This does have like a slightly thicker feel on your palate, which does alter the flavor.

You know, flavor is kind of the cross section of taste, aroma, and mouthfeel. So, you know, I definitely have sour and sweet, , you know, aromas of blueberry, lemon and those type of flavors to an overall, you know, thicker mouthfeel that kind of gives us, you know, not quite jammy, but it's got a little bit more of that.

Like if you were to make a blueberry pie where there's a little bit of like corn starch or like a slurry in there to give it like a little bit of thickness, that's kind of, that's kind of vibe I get here. 

So it definitely has  more lemon presence on the palate and when I drink it than I did when I smelled it. I definitely smelled more blueberry,  but as I drink it, it's more of like a blueberry lemonade than it is a blueberry with lemon, so to speak. Agreed. And then as I continue to sip it. , and maybe that's why I keep sipping is there's this nice balancing act of where I do get a little like pine and a little bit of that hoppy, you know, cause hops bring aroma flavor as well as bitterness.

So I don't get a ton of bitterness,  you know, the, the bitterness more comes across as like the, the, the tart lemon, like almost like the, like bitter lemon pith versus. And that's kind of, you know, some of these hops, you get that grapefruit pith, this is more of a lemon pith because of the lemon, but that kind of like tannic pith, , bitterness.

But I do get like this kind of like floral, herby, green kind of finish that, you know, almost like a pine tree pops out a little bit at the end of it. where I can like, you know, enjoy a nice little balance of sweet tart and then a little, little, little hoppy bitterness. 

So you got the, , Citric or Citra and Mosaic hops in this.

So that would make sense.  

So Citra Mosaic, very, very citrusy hops, right? They, they're both, , they kind of go hand in hand. ,  think has their sit mo IPA, which is citrus and mosaic. Those are your much more, , citrus forward, juicy kind of hops. You know, hops are chosen for a recipe in a beer for the attributes they bring.

And, you know, even their, their. Alpha acid content. So, alpha acids are what actually bring the bitterness. So, some, certain, you know, hops are just known as the bittering hops because you don't really want too much flavor. You're just boiling and getting the bitterness as it's, , meant to balance the beer as well as some of the, , preservative aspects of hops and, and what, , hopping a beer does.

But,  sour IPA, One thing that I think you can be, , expecting versus something marketed or labeled as a fruited sour is that there's going to be some dry hopping.  So you take, , you know, to me, this is like a fruited sour that had, you know,  Abundant amount of dry hopping going on that gives you this, , you know, citrusy a little bit of that, , kind of resinous piney, , hop flavor.

I don't get it much on the aroma cause the lemon and blueberry are so  pronounced and prominent. We don't have it at the moment, but we did with the other beer that I get it on the palate, and when I'm drinking it, and it does help make it for a little bit more of a balanced and just, you know, overall kind of just like a unique beer, right?

It's not quite, , you know, we immediately took a sip and said, Yep, I'm going to go. It's more fruited sour than IPA.  As I drink this more and more, those hops are present and, you know, I still wouldn't mistake this for a, an IPA, but you know, there was a big time and they're still around, but the milkshake IPAs were a big thing, but I think milkshake IPAs, , lend themselves a little bit more towards, , vanilla and even more lactose.

So it's a little bit more creamy and then it's just, you know, Milkshake IPA is just a little bit more of everything. It's more lactose, so creamier, and then a lot more hops. So there's a lot more bitterness. So this one is kind of like, Hey, let's take that milkshake IPA vibe, but really tone down the IPA version.

And it's, it's more of a fruited sour. that meets an IPA than an IPA that meets a fruited sour if that makes any sense whatsoever.  

Definitely a whole mouth feel to this one. I like it. , yeah, , going back, you know, more prominent lemon over a blueberry. It's balanced for me on the nose, but lemon over blueberry on the taste.

Yeah, this is different from a lot of the ones. , like one of the comparisons, I 12 gates, blue, blue lemon. Okay. Which is more blueberry than lemon. So I guess if you were flipping the flipping the cards there. 

Yeah, this is one of those, , you know, their artworks also always very nice. Like it's their eye catching cans that they're, they're all more of like designs and, , you know, kind of artistic and not so much photographic.

I mean, a lot of artistry and photography, but it's, it's more of, , an interpretation of artwork than it is a straight up.  picture of lemons or blueberries. So you have, , it's a nice spiral effect on the can of, you know, this blue lemon and, ,  like purple. And it does kind of give you that vibe of when we're drinking this beer, that it's just this kind of like swirling flavor of that blueberry, that lemon, that IPA hoppiness, , in the form of, you know, Hop flavor, not so much bitterness and it all kind of just blends together.

And as we're sipping it, it kind of just, some sips are a little bit more blueberry, some sips are a little bit happier to me, the lemon always continually comes through, which makes it a very refreshing beverage. , you know, lemon, you think about lemon, we use lemon in a lot of our cooking and it, it just, it brightens and lightens things up.

It just adds that acid that will, , kind of just almost how like salt adds, , flavor. But it's not it's really just allowing the flavors to pop to me. Lemon does some something similar where it's like, you know, a little squeeze a lemon because you just need something to contrast with. So if you contrast with the lemon flavor in this, you end up with, you know, a lot of blueberry, a lot of those hop notes. 

It is tart, , but that tartness is not overbearing because there's some nice sweet in there. And, you know, if we, if we take a step back to the, the red by Petrus and compare it to this, to me, this is actually closer to the lambic or the goose because of the, the tart,  Sourness of it and it leans a little bit more towards the  You know citrate Citrusy and acidic side of things where that read by Petrus definitely was sweeter  It was definitely  , leaned towards sweet.

I use the word leaned a lot lean because it's, you know, they're both there. You can find both of them when you try it, but what does it finish with? And if you had to describe it to somebody, or I like to say, if we were to describe to aliens or, you know, someone that's never tried something from our planet, would you say it's more of a sweet?

Thing or more of a sour thing. And to me, this is definitely more sour and tart, but very well balanced and, you know, very, you know, you can tell it's a well crafted beer, , something, you know, I, I would expect Hudson Valley to do. It just has, it hits on everything. It's not overly any one of those notes, but it, , you know, kind of all comes together and makes for like a refreshing.

Sour IPA. 

Yeah, it's a, and it's a very popular style if you're, you know, local to the Buffalo area, , a couple of comparisons would be like going to rising storm out in Livonia. They also have the new location up in, , Rochester, which I'll actually be visiting this weekend. Finally, I'm supposed to go up there the weekend of the snow storm, but of course that kind of botched everything, 

, 

steel bound, which I had opportunity to talk to the owners this past weekend.

And, , they have a very nice, , sour IPA that. They have, , continuously on their schedule and they're putting, , where hooked was in the mosey hotel on main streets, like a mile and a quarter from my, from my place. They.  They're putting in a new Asian fusion restaurant and brewery there. So very excited for the things.

And, , one of the things I can actually talk about on this episode, which will probably come out before this is that I got a sneak peek at the menu.  So it's, , yeah, this is definitely something you want to check out if you're into Asian fusion at all and, , looking forward to them. And they gave me a tentative release date, which I can't really. 

but so many teasers. Yeah. A lot of teasers, but yeah. So just a couple of comparisons. And then, , one of the, , , one of my favorite, , sour IPAs that I could really compare this to would be new Belgium's sour APA, which is, you know, again, even flavor coats the mouth nicely. , some, you know, I,  something is more prominent lemon like this.

I've joked over the years when you've got a prominently lemon, , , flavor. , your teeth will never feel so clean because, , if you, if you drank a couple of beers before that, whatever you had on your teeth is now gone  because that'll take care of that. And then, , the way this is made is with the raw wheat, , the flaked and the,  , malted oats.

So you've got a great full mouth feel, just top to bottom, both cheeks, tongue, everything. 

Yeah. And those that don't realize, you know, what that does to a beer, if you think, , you know, Anytime we talk lactose, I would bring up milk stouts because it's just, to me, it's the most popular version of something that has lactose in it.

, you know, sours now might take over that realm because there's so many sours and there's so much lactose and sours. But when you talk about, oh, you got to go to the oatmeal stout. And, you know, oats in a beer are meant to give it like this creaminess. Sometimes if you use too much oats or, you know, purposely, if you're doing it, it almost gives like an oiliness to it where it's like slick.

And, , you know, I don't get any of that with this, but you do get this, like, , like I said, kind of like as if there was some sort of slurry in this that, you know, doesn't, doesn't make it thick, like a gravy. We're definitely not, you know, putting down, , it's not heavy in the least. It just, it coats your mouth a little bit, almost like a gastrique.

Like, , you know, not quite if I were to pull a spoon against this in a pan, would it leave too long of a, , an empty divot there, but it, it's, it's definitely got some, toothiness to it. It, , coats your mouth. And what I like about that for styles like this is since there's multiple fruit flavors, there's a little bit of, , you know, that piney, citrusy, kinda pithy hop flavor to it, is it just kinda lingers, right?

Because it, , it stays on your palate, it stays in your mouth a little bit longer because it's a little thicker. This is another one that, , You know, you're not going to be, , crushing it too quickly just cause it is, it, you know, it is very, , tart on the finish and it's not extremely dry. , you know, we talk about that goose we started with in this series.

That was very dry. I mean, you drank there, very 

dry. 

Yeah, almost no sweetness all like tart and sour still still balanced But now I go back to that. Yeah, I go back to that word leaning that was definitely leaning towards tart and sour This one, you know, then we had the red that leaned really towards sweet  But it was very, you know balanced enough where?

You know, we put those ones down pretty quickly. This is one where it's my first few sips.  I was more intrigued and sitting back and thinking about the flavors. Then my next two sips went down really quickly because, you know, my mouth kind of got acclimated to that lemon tartness and I was kind of just enjoying it.

And now, you know, Hudson Valley doing what they do best and having just a, a very, just,  flavor profile. My last few sips have been slower again because I'm kind of rediscovering. And, you know, as this beer warms up slightly and the flavor changes a little bit due to that, I'm, you know, I went from, Hmm, what's this all about to, Ooh, yeah, this is pretty good to, Hmm, what's that all about again.

And, , you know, a beer that kind of is just evolving as I'm drinking it.  

I've been known to use the term summer sipper over the past couple of seasons of the podcast. And I think this is one that I can put in that category. Something that you, you know, you get it nice and cold, it's in the glass and you're not, you're nursing it.

I mean, you're, you're not, it's not something that you're gulping down. You're savoring the flavor of this one. 

Yeah. Definitely. This is, , this is definitely something for the pool side. Like, you know, I don't, I don't see myself busting out a bunch of these in a winter campfire.  , this isn't, this isn't going to warm me.

This is definitely going to refresh me, but that, , the nice tartness and that blueberry with a little, little hint of hoppy. , at the end there. It's just, it's a nice balanced flavor. I can definitely see myself drinking a whole 16 ounce can of this. Am I going to drink these back to back to back?  Not so much.

It's just not the style that I, , you know, sours in general are not the style that I coif too much, , versus that, you know, I can go back to that red by Petrus where, I mean, if that's all that was there and I was able to just keep drinking it, it was sweet enough where, you know, the brain likes the sweet.

So I think I could have drunk, You know a little bit more of that where I am I am definitely enjoying this and when we you know had our goos That was something I definitely liked splitting because very slow sipper very nuanced and you know we're kind of just seeing the evolution here and different types of sour and the  the different  that they bring.

Yeah. Good middle of the road. 7%. , you were just mentioning that Petrus red, which was about an eight and a half real trouble beer right there. A beer that doesn't drink down like a beer. , so yeah, this one is  perfectly ideal, like summertime, just enjoying poolside, like I said.  

Refreshing. Just, , overall, a very refreshing beer.

And this, this brewery, I mean, their IPAs are very, very well, , well liked and sought after. They're one of those places that whatever they put out, you know, that there was some thought. They're not rushing to get things to the market. They're taking their time. Everything's kind of intentional. And their beer is  , well worth the purchase or at least trying.

So if somebody has some always say yes to trying it, , you know, this flavor combination, , is a little, a little bit more tart. Anytime you do have lemon, you know, that it's going to just have that, ,  citrus and, you know, citric kind of acid tartness to it. So kind of, kind of what I expected and a pleasant mouthfeel. 

And just overall  a well balanced beer But using that word leaning again definitely leaning towards the tart and sour 

right as we as we wind this episode down here One of the things like I could bring up is when we're talking again talking about beer Flavor profiles here were blueberry lemon, but I mean going to something like I'll bring up again rising storm.

You can bring any Number of flavors into the equation. I mean blackberry cherry  Prickly pear you can play with guava. I mean every anything can come into play when it comes to a sour IPA  It's wrong as long as it makes a great flavor combination  And one of the 

big ones that you'll see a lot in Sours and Sour IPAs is that they call it the POG, a P O G.

It's the passion fruit, orange, and guava. 

There you go. 

So, you know, some things just naturally go well together. I mean, one of the things that I always think is, , pretty tasty is like orange and pineapple. So, you know, throwing the guava in there kind of makes sense, but, you know, a lot of, ,  Breakfast places, you know, you think about what they offer on the, , the juice table and those, those all kind of go together nicely. 

And as long as they don't clash and there's not kind of a train wreck of flavors, you're going to end up with something that, you know, it's fruit, you know, fruit with other fruits. It's kind of like the whole fruit salad, fruit basket kind of concept. And if you do everything within reason and don't go overboard on one or the other, then you're going to have yourself a nice little, , Tasting experience.

All right. I like that. Well, that's going to, that's going to bring us down the, , the pipeline. The end of episode three, we got one to go. This is going to be the, , the home run, the, , the at bat hitting for the cycle, because it's, , you talk about sour IPAs as a niche, , what we got coming up is definitely going to be a niche for folks.

, it's something that people. , look for, they, they look to almost collect. I would, I guess you could say, , we have a couple of comparables here in, in, in the Buffalo area as well. , but we're going to be talking about, , imprint  beer company out of Hatfield, Pennsylvania for our final episode of the sour power series.

Yeah. We're going to go a little, a little shmoogy on you. Yeah. So, , stick around, make sure you, ,  Try episode four on if you're into the, the smoothie style sours, it's like I said, we're going to go from traditional till today. And, you know, if we presented one of the, , smoothie style beers we're about to enjoy to a lambic producer, a hundred years ago, they would think, , they would think our beer had gone bad. 

There we go. I like that. I like that. It's a good, , good way to finish that, Craig. And, , , always have fun in the learning. , so many things about this. , you know, here we are, you know, three episodes up, three episodes down so far. And, and I'm learning a lot about, , you know, learning about lambics, learning about, , , QV, I'm learning about, , you, you name it.

We're, we're, , we've been taught. That's 

the power of the sour, you know, there's a lot of different ways to sour a beer and we, you know, we've touched on a lot of different bacteria, a lot of different, , , types of fungus, or you know, what we're used to with yeast. And that's what makes it such a like, kind of an exciting broad category and very much , you know, more on the newer side of things.

Because the traditional style stuff was kind of, you know, very similar. You knew what you were kind of getting. And now, You know, especially with next episode, we're about to put together here. You'll see how kind of overboard and crazy you can get with this stuff. Yeah. 

Yeah. Well, in the meantime, you, , you stick with us here.

Cause we'll be back in all due order because we are barely getting started. Cheers, my friend. Cheers.