Wild Sour Series: Syncopathic Apricot is a Sour Ale brewed with Apricot and is dry hopped. The beer is brewed seasonally by DESTIHL Brewery in Bloomington, Illinois. From what I can tell, the "Syncopathic" sour series are named after their blending (or syncing) of flavors which may not normally go together. For example, Syncopathic Apricot combines the classic apricot sour ale with hops that are usually seen in Pale Ales.
Syncopathic Apricot pours an orange-gold color with a massive, fluffy head that lingers. I wasn't expecting so many bubbles to hang around on top of the beer!
The beer smells strongly of acidic tartness. I'm almost scared to taste it after that smell. Luckily there is also the pleasant, sweet aroma of apricots. It's almost like the smell of a candied apricot rather than the fresh fruit itself, and is very nice. There is also a slight scent of wheat behind these two strong aromas. I get the slightest hint of a weird metallic smell to the beer as well.
The apricot sour sports a medium level of carbonation alongside a similarly medium body, making it quite smooth. This entry in the Wild Sour series comes in at an alcohol content of 6% ABV.
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| All the flavor of apricots, distilled into your beer! |
Oh wow. This beer is sour. Like, pucker-up, kind of burns your mouth, cloyingly sour. In fact, this flavor reminds me of the "extremely sour" candies coated in citric acid that I used to love as a child, and once burned the skin off of my tongue by eating too much of. Luckily the sweet and mildly earthy flavor of apricots is also present and balances out some of the acidic sour's assault on my mouth. Nice citrus and pine hops blend extremely well with the apricot, which convinces me further of the origin of this beer's name. Slight notes of bready malts lie underneath the apricot flavors as well. That weird metallic-ness from the aroma is also present in the beer's flavor. You know, those candies I used to love were all fruit flavored as well, but the star of the show was the citric acid. You would suffer through the sour layer and then be rewarded by the sweet but mild fruit flavors in the middle. It was cool to me as a kid, but I'm not such a fan of the same idea being used in beer. Syncopathic Apricot finishes dry, and luckily the cloying sourness doesn't stick around too long after you swallow.
Wow, I wasn't expecting to be nearly blown out of the water by sourness on this one. Most of what I love about sour ales is the balance between tartness, funkiness, and malts or fruit flavors. This beer is definitely lacking in the balance department. It's really too bad as well - the apricot and hops flavors are delicious together! Maybe I'm just extra sensitive to sourness today, but I really feel that this beer is almost sour to the point of undrinkability - it's a sipper if anything, to be sure. I feel like DESTIHL mixed a really good flavor profile with a sour novelty in this one.
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