If anyone ever tells me that craft beer can’t be as multifaceted in flavour as wine, I will pour Mikkeller SpontanTripleBlueberry over them and ask them to re-evaluate. Then I may have to lick them, as this craft brew is simply too good to waste.
Brewed with 1500g of blueberries per litre, the hot-pink can is literally bursting with fruit. Popping the ring pull produces an aroma like opening a jar of blueberry jam.
The colour of the beer is almost as striking as the packaging. It pours a deep, purple that looks almost blood-red when the light comes through it. It looks like wine, but of course is much better because, well, it’s beer.
Made with sorcery, not science
SpontanTripleBlueberry is made for Danish brewery Mikkeller at De Proefbrouweri, a specialist centre in Belgium that brews weird and wonderful craft beers for third parties.
The ‘Spontan’ in the name comes from the ‘spontaneous’ brewing, meaning that the yeast that turns the grain, hops, blueberries and water into beer isn’t a scientifically selected strain added by the brewer (“pitched” is the proper term) but instead is “wild”, coming from the air in the brewery or the oak barrels that this fine brew is aged in.
It’s this free-range yeast that gives this beer its sour character. While the nose is all blueberry, the taste is sour cherry, with a woodiness from the oak and a barnyard funkiness (in a good way) from the yeast. It’s super tart with an acidity that reminds me of green apples or sour candy – at first taste you wince and gurn a little but keep coming back for more.
Wait, where’s the alcohol?
The one thing that’s missing? The booze. This is a 10% ABV bad boy, but there’s no alcohol sting or heat at all, making it dangerously drinkable.
That said, like most sour beers it’s not intended for a session, but would be great with food. Also available in a large bottle, it’d be great as a wine-substitute to go with strong flavours like duck, or a nice steak and maybe even game.
If you’re looking for a gateway beer to explore sour craft beers, I’d recommend giving this a try. There is a ‘double’ version too, clocking in at a slightly gentler 7.7% ABV, and, for the sour ale aficionado, there’s a 9.9% quadruple too. It would also be a great choice for converting a wine buff to the way of the craft.
The verdict? Big sour blueberry beer, but you won’t be blue or sour once you’ve given it a try.
