Name: Guyabano Sour
Brewer: Palm Tree Abbey (Philippines)
Style: Fruit Beer (Base Style: Berliner Weisse)
ABV: 5%
Review Year: 2021
Guyabano Sour is a special small-batch kettle sour beer by Palm Tree Abbey and was brewed with guyabano (soursop) puree, pilsner and wheat malts, Helveticus Lactobacillus, Citra hops, and Belle Saison yeast.
STYLE GUIDELINES
This beer is being evaluated as a Fruit Beer (29A) with the Berliner Weisse (23A) as the base style in the context of the 2015 Beer Style Guidelines of the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP). The most current version of the guidelines can be found on the BJCP website.
TASTING NOTES
Slightly hazy pale gold with a very thin head. The aroma was composed of moderately low guyabano and orange pith with an equally intense bready character. Light-medium body; moderately carbonated with a subtle puckering quality. Like the aroma, the flavor profile featured prominent guyabano, mandarin orange, and orange pith with a moderately high sourness that is not harsh. A fairly high bready character was present while bitterness was subtle. The familiar mandarin orange, low lactic acidity, and a bready character all lingered into the aftertaste. No brettanomyces funk.
THE VERDICT
The pilot batch of Palm Tree Abbey’s Guyabano Sour is a very good one considering the style parameters of a Berliner Weisse brewed with fruit. The showcased fruit was evident in the aroma and flavor, while the relatively tamed sourness made this beer very approachable. Further, Guyabano Sour is slightly more potent than a classic Berliner Weisse at 5% ABV, but no additional alcohol impression was noted.
Guyabano Sour, despite being fermented with a Saison yeast, deviates from a classic Saison. In fact, this beer drifts closer to a fruit-added wheat beer inoculated with lactobacillus rather than a Saison due mainly to its bready malt backbone that lingered into the aftertaste. The wheat malts, guyabano puree, and the lactobacillus seemed to have done the heavy lifting in this beer. While lactic acid from the lactobacillus is known to reduce head retention in the finished beer, we think slightly more carbonation could be pursued.
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