Funky in Nashville

(Apologies for delays and for all the beer names I probably screwed up below).

A few months back, I took a rare opportunity to use my bartender’s card (a perk from my wine store days) to pour some rare sour and funky beers. Yazoo Brewing held its first Embrace the Funk festival and put out a call for pourers of high-gravity beer.

Unlike other beer festivals, Yazoo held its releases close to the vest, not giving festivalgoers any advance notice of when the beers would pour. That led to a lot of shuffling across the brewery floor and a spontaneity festivals usually lack. It also prevented people from queuing up when at the scheduled time for a rare beer. It just happened and people dealt with it.

I did get a few sips of Yazoo’s multiple sour and wild yeast experiments made in partnership with Brandon of Embrace the Funk. Bear in mind that these were mostly the smallest of tastes. Aside from two or three, I never tasted more than an ounce of any sour, so if you want to contradict what my palate registered, feel free. I spent most of the day pouring nonstop and these tastes came in fleeting moments.

Yazoo/New Belgium Rufus had notes of cherry, strawberry and other bramble fruits. It was creamy and light, its sour pucker more mild than most. At its best moments, Rufus reminded me of Russian River’s Supplication, a sour brewed with cherries and aged in pinot noir barrels. Yazoo used two Brettanomyces variations and aged the beer on currants and blackberries. New Belgium contributed Oscar, its proprietary dark sour ale that serves as the base beer for La Folie, its annual dark sour blend.

One of the other volunteers brought me samples of the rarities. Yazoo Sour Cherry went for the throat, more than living up to its name. I only took a sip, but could only be described as brute force sour.

Up next I received a splash (and only a splash) of Yazoo 100 percent Brett Custersianus Amarillo Double Hopped Ale. Too rarely do brewers add hops to sour/wild ales. New Belgium’s Le Terroir prove how sublime they can be. Yazoo makes the case for more meetings. Amarillo pairs perfectly with sour ale. This ale had a great twist of assertive, citrus-rich hops as it finished. The brett strain pushed a dry, herbal notes to the front of the palate.

After I poured more than 120 splashes of a Flemish red, the brewers broke out Liefmans Goudenband. This Flemish brown had traces of rum, molasses, and dark fruits, especially currants. Dark and chewy, Goudenband had a bright sour profile, with plenty of acidity and cider tones.

On the same break, I sampled Wild Child, a dark sour with Sue, Yazoo’s smoked porter, as its base. A batch of Sue spoiled with lactobacillus led to Yazoo’s sour revolution and Fortuitous, a decent sour porter. Here Yazoo blend Sue with its Dos Perros dark ale and barrel aged the blend. Wild Child had some interesting notes of smoke, anise and some peaks of spice (coriander), but it did not push any envelopes. In the last round of releases, Yazoo Brett Horyezons, 100 percent Brett Fermented Ale aged Rye Whisky Barrel. Chalk it up to me getting burned out on rye beer and whiskey, but this ale was a letdown. All that stuck out was a little spice and the sensation of licking the inside of a rye barrel.

My last taste introduced a new style. Yazoo Lichtenhainer-Style Ale was a revelation, a beer both smoky and sour. It seemed like the next evolutionary step from the Beacon, a smoked wheat ale produced jointly by Yazoo and Calfkiller.

The last taste was the least expected. I started talking with a few men who had been friendly when I poured beer for them all day. They worked at the Brewery at Blackberry Farm in Walland, near the Smoky Mountains in east Tennessee. The brown sour started off in line with the style, then broke from its sour character into an impressive finish of cayenne and other pepper heat. The heat never became overwhelming, but never lost its intensity. It was as rare as anything poured officially at the festival, and a great argument to the isolated areas on the east side of the Smoky Mountains.