Sunday Night Suds - Boluevard Tell Tale Tart Ale

This week's Sunday Night Suds looks at Boulevard Brewery's Tell Tale Tart Ale.

The Tell Tale Tart Ale is the most recent addition to the Boulevard Brewery's "Smokestack Series" which are sold in 4 packs wherein the bottles are taller and skinnier than traditional 12 oz bottles (hence the name "Smokestack").

The gurus at BA classify the Tell Tale Tart Ale as an American Wild Ale, which they describe as:

Sometimes Belgian influenced, American Wild Ales are beers that are introduced to "wild" yeast or bacteria, such as: Brettanomyces (Brettanomyces Bruxellensis, Brettanomyces Lambicus or Brettanomyces Anomolus), Pediococcus or Lactobacillus. This introduction may occur from oak barrels that have been previously inoculated, pitched into the beer, or gained from various "sour mash" techniques. Regardless of which and how, these little creatures often leave a funky calling card that can be quite strange, interesting, pleasing to many, but also often deemed as undesirable by many.

Mrs KB and I sampled this beer a little over a week ago with a friend who is a Belgian aficionado (by that I mean he likes and knows Belgian beers, but he's actually from Jersey). Unfortunately, none of us were taken by this brew.

The beer poured a murky orange with little carbonation. The first sip was sour, not really tart. It reminded me of the time I tried to mix lemon juice with bourbon. Yep, neither that combo or this beer's combo of yeast and hops was a very good idea. After a few sips I could taste a little strawberry type sweetness, but I could not get much beyond my first glass of this and I was glad that I had other people to pass this around for sampling.

Boulevard Tell Tale Tart Ale is under the Kosher Supervision of the Va'ad of Kansas City, but the bottle I purchased did not have the certification mark on the label. If you would like the LOC from the Va'ad, please let me know and I will email it to you.

To see what the experts on Beer Advocate think about this brew, please follow this link -http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/423/168726.

As always, please remember to drink responsibly and to never waste good beer unless there is no designated driver.

If you've tried this beer or any others which have been reviewed on the kosher beers site, please feel free to post your comments (anonymous comments are acceptable).

Important Disclaimer - If you are reading this post more than six months after it was written, please note that it is possible that the product is no longer still certified kosher. To verify that the product is still certified kosher, please click on the kosher beers list link on the top left corner of the blog.

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