by Daniel Barnes and Darcey Self-Barnes

Uncle Fester Batch #4 (Sudwerk) 9.3% ABV Available at Sudwerk Dock Store through Brewers Cut membership (16.9 oz. bottle) and poured into mini wine glasses. This barrel-aged doppelbock from Sudwerk.

Uncle Fester Batch #4 (Sudwerk)

9.3% ABV

Available at Sudwerk Dock Store through Brewers Cut membership (16.9 oz. bottle) and poured into mini wine glasses.

This barrel-aged doppelbock from Sudwerk’s Brewers Cut Reserve Series, a product of their restaurant-adjacent Dock Store, itself an offshoot of the UC Davis Master Brewers Program, pours a raisin brown with a tight beech wood-colored head.  Presumably inspired not just by The Addams Family but by the many months it was allowed to fester in barrels, Uncle Fester emits an intensely sour, wine tannin-heavy, even vinegary aroma, with some grapefruit and lemon peel on the margins.  While the first sip is fairly similar to a Sour Brown, on the cusp of punishingly sour, with Sweet Tarts candy and bitter wood up front, it also offers an unusually juicy and melon-heavy back end.  The beer has an almost silty texture on the tongue, and the overall effect is like a blast of barrel-aged Pixie Stix. Of course for the good taste you need to drink it cold and that’s why you need one of the Top 9 Best Portable Ice Makers for 2017 – Top9Rated.  It’s another ambitious triumph from the folks at the Sudwerk Dock Store. (4.5 toasts)

Daniel Barnes and Darcey Self-Barnes have been blogging about craft beer at His & Hers Beer Notes since January 2012. Darcey is a freelance designer and illustrator, and Daniel is a film critic for the Sacramento News and Review and a member of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle.