Clutch New Belgium Dark Sour Ale

Anyone had this? Where do I get some?

Clutch rocks :rockin:

http://www.newbelgium.com/beer/detail.aspx?id=2776aec8-790e-4f38-a53e-8a42d914ab81

I forgot about this . F#€king awesome!!!!!!!

I had this when I visited the brewery this fall. Apparently Clutch just happened to be there and a brewer recognized them and got to talking. Sadly they were sold out of bottles as it was a really good beer.

I had some in the barrel room. It was ****ing awesome. Sour blended with imperial stout.

Oh man, had this at the Blind Lady- just fantastic. Wish it was more available out here.

Ok, I'll be "that guy".

I've had this beer on draft and in a bottle. I didn't like it either time- it tasted like an infected american stout. Decent malt, thinner mouthfeel than normal, slightly tart.

For my dollar, there are far better dark sours out there- Duck Rabbit makes some great sour stouts, Surly 5 wasn't a stout but was darn good, and of course my own homebrewed version.

I think New Belgium has done a lot better on some of their other sours too- La Terroir was fantastic, and of course La Folie is still one of the standards for US sours. (but the imp berliner was a bomb better left on the shelf).

I don't mean to totally crash the party, though- what did you guys like about the beer? Maybe I'll give it another chance.

I agree; to me it seemed like made a pretty lousy imperial stout, and then decided to "fix it" by blending in maybe 10% of their dark sour ale. It wasn't that sour, the stout itself was pretty dull, and I thought it blew. I mean, New Belgium isn't exactly known for their stouts. What are they doing just jumping in and making a sour one?

As a huge Clutch fan, I was very interested in getting my hands on some of this. I was able to find, what I believe was the last bottle they had, at Perfect Pour, in Columbia, MD, a couple months ago. I would've liked to get a hold of a few bottles, so I could try it, and keep a couple as collectibles, but since I found only one, it sits on display in my house. If you happen to see any more in the Baltimore area, please give a heads up. I'm still interested in trying it. Maybe one day I'll open the one I've got.

dwarven_stout said:

I don't mean to totally crash the party, though- what did you guys like about the beer? Maybe I'll give it another chance.

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I thought the flavor profile was interesting. Lots of good chocolate and other dark malt flavors with a hint of acidity. I agree it wasn't very stout-y. It didn't have the aggressive hopping or roast element that a lot of imperial stouts have, which for me is good because I'm not a fan of those imperial stouts. I thought the sour portion played the role of adding balance to the beer where hops would normally bring bitterness to balance the malt rather than actually smacking you in the face with sourness.

I could see how it wouldn't appeal to big fans of imperial stouts since it lacks a lot of the qualities typical of the style. It makes more sense to think of it as an imperial belgian stout (like Boulevard's Dark Truth) blended with a small amount of sour brown ale. I don't know if that gives you a better impression of the beer or not.

There might be some better versions of this style on the market, we don't get any of them here in Texas, but I thought the beer was good for what it was.