Four Winds Nectarous
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?
CHECK IN

Bam. Gold. Make more, please.
Sure was good. It’s also worth noting that you’ll likely never find a better sour for a better price this right now. I hope they play around with this recipe and try out some different hopping and variations.
West Coast Beer Geek
23 Jan 15 at 11:40
Yup, was only $10.99 to purchase from the brewery. You’ll not likely find a local sour that good, for that cheap any time soon.
Jamie
23 Jan 15 at 11:54
Any benefit in aging this?
Nick
24 Jan 15 at 17:11
Not particularly. Lots of the appeal comes from the hyper fresh hops, so while this beer definitely would change over time, I’m not convinced it’ll be for the better.
chuck
27 Jan 15 at 10:22
From what I understand it will be brewed again in a month or so. So we should hopefully see another release of Nectarous sometime this spring.
Tyler
28 Jan 15 at 22:42
Also, i/r/t what Chuck said, didn’t I read somewhere that they had to kill this entire batch’s worth of bugs/yeast because it was too unstable? Basically, you shouldn’t age this.
smrkrkrmrnnrnn
29 Jan 15 at 00:52
I actually am guessing they kettle soured it, re-boiled and killed off all the lacto, then pitched the belgian yeast and brett trois, so there shouldn’t have been any bugs running rampant.
However that is just a guess.
Someone said it was unstable?
Tyler
29 Jan 15 at 15:22
[…] I have chuckled a little when reading some the reviews coming from online bloggers. Check out Barley Mowat`s review here. I think he likes […]
Random Sunday Addendum: Four Winds Nectarous - The Flagon
1 Feb 15 at 14:40
[…] early January, the Barley Mowat urged us to get our hands on as many bottles of Four Winds Nectarous Sour as we could possibly handle, since […]
Sours! Sours everywhere! | Craft Beer Vancouver
30 Dec 15 at 15:51