Allagash Nancy

Allagash Nancy is one of the latest sour beer outings by the Maine brewery.   Per their website, Nancy is a sour Belgian-Flemish red ale brewed with two types of cherries and fermented with brettanomyces.   Been months since I've had a sour beer, and it feels nice to get back to one, but my palate has since lost the vocabulary to interpret them properly.  I'll give it a shot.

I'm not really sure how they get away with calling Nancy a red ale, as this is at best crimson-rimmed gold. Clear as water, with a good deal of carbonation, as befits a Belgian beer..  However, head formation is almost non-existent.

The bottle merely states the use of cherries in an ale, it gives no other indication what kind of beer this is. I eventually looked on their website to see exactly what Allagash was going for, but it wasn't hard to figure out once I smelled it: Nancy is unmistakeably a sour beer.  Lactic and tangy aromas stride forth, with just a touch of cherry.  There is an odd but appetizing suggestion of bread crust that was also present in Allagash Merveilleux, which I previously reviewed; I don't know what type of malt they use in their sours but Allagash really manages to bring out interesting malt aromas in a realm of beers known for possessing dry and uninteresting grain profiles.

The flavor starts out aggressively sour in both the lactic and acetic sense before abruptly switching gears to cherries.  The cherry flavors are not remotely sweet like most kinds sold in a grocery store.  Very tart.  Mid-palate is dominated by a combination of brettanomyces tang, lemons, and various indeterminate spices.  The finish is a glorious mix of bread crust, cinnamon, brett tang, and very subtle cherry.


This was a pleasant little treat.

Been months since I've had a sour beer, feels nice to get back to one, but my palate has since lost the vocabularly to interpret

Been months since I've had a sour beer, feels nice to get back to one, but my palate has since lost the vocabularly to interpret