Barley Mowat 

Okay, fine, I haven’t updated the beer 411 column on the right in quite a while (and now it’s gone). Maybe I just wanted to leave my beloved beer up in the lime light for as long as possible, or maybe I’m a lazy ass. It can be both things, right?

Well, leave it to Four Winds to jolt me into action. Sure, Saison Brett came out a few months ago and it was great, but meh, that’s old hat; we’d seen SB before. This week, though, they go and drop the long rumoured Nectarous bottle release on us.

Nectarous is one of those beers that the beererati have been talking about so long it’s almost become mythical. There was a sample batch released in small quantities last spring, and then it had occasional sightings at the brewery tasting room, but it never did show up in bottled form. All we had to go on was breathless reports of an amazing sour being developed south of the Fraser but, by the time we hired sherpas and found our way out there, it was gone.

Well, it’s here now, and as my mono-syllabic Untappd review hints, it’s freaking amazing. This is a world-class sour, folks, and you’d be a bloody idiot not to march into your nearest private liquor store and carry out as much as your body allows.

2015 isn’t a month old, and we already have a strong contender for beer of the year. However, there’s a chance this could just be the start. If the rumours I’m hearing about a never-ending parade of sours coming to BC this year are to be believed, we’re in for a hell of a 12 months.

UPDATE: I have been informed that this beer actually contains no fruit. All the fruity juiciness and esters are purely a product of the yeast and bacteria. While I’ve definitely had fruitless fruity sours previously, I would have bet damn good money on this guy having the real deal in it. That only makes this beer even more amazing.

APPEARANCE Pours opaque orange/yellow with a tight, long lasting head.
NOSE Nectarine and peach, with a hint of tartness in the back balanced by lemon peel. Is that kiwi/jackfruit from the hops?
TASTE Wow. Perfect balance between the sweetness of the fruit, the yeast funk, the tartness/acidity/lemon and the hops. Where does the peach/nectarine end and the Galaxy hops start? Beautiful.
STATS 5.5% ABV / 15 IBU / Fruit Sour
SHOULD I BUY IT? Are you mad? Do you breath? Is life worth living?
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Bam. Gold. Make more, please.