By the Bottle is a reoccurring tasting report exploring hard-to-find bottled releases spotted in Chester County and beyond.
By the Bottle: Bruery’s Oude Tart
Where: Bistro on Bridge, 210 Bridge Street, Phoenixville
For Fans of: Duchesse De Bourgogne by Brouwerij Verhaeghe
At Orange County, California’s The Bruery, bold is beautiful.
Since debuting their fifteen-barrel brewhouse on the West Coast in 2008, craft beer lovers across the country (especially those on the East Coast), have sought out their small-batch, experimental bottle releases — a plethora of palate-pleasing wonders that always succeed in freshening up the norm’ hop-forward routine.
Being a fiend for funk, I’m partial to the Bruery’s Oude Tart release, a glorious Flanders Red aged in red wine barrels for eighteen months. This particular sour is a home run for the brewery, being held on a pedestal due to its laundry list of gold medals, including accolades from the 2010 and 2012 World Beer Cup and 2011’s Great American Beer Festival.
Lucky for Phoenixville locals, I recently spied this 750ml bottle in-stock at Bistro on Bridge, as part of their recently-expanded craft beer selection. While they’ve been rocking a fifteen-deep draft roster for some time now, with a majority of the taps focused on micro-beers, owner Zach Hoffman is now expanding his bottle list. He’s even brought in an additional beer cooler to house more hard-to-find, must-try releases (a list that now nears 90+ varieties) — which of course includes the Bruery’s award-winner.
Coming in at 7.5% ABV, Oude Tart is primarily dominated by notes of sharp, dark fruit, poured rich in ruby red with minimal head. Since the year-and-a-half aging stint is necessary in the development of this beer, as it allows for its sour components to intensify, a pungent waft of plum, red grapes and oak is already present on the nose, seconds after you pop the cap.
Sipping through the big bottle, I noticed the mouthfeel is light and with barnyard funk of the front, followed by a medley of balsamic vinegar, dark cherries and light oak. Heavy acidity finishes off the backend of each sip, which helps reinforce how refreshing the release truly is—even with its robust tartness. Since Oude Tart is a well-balanced, approachable sour red ale with non-lingering final notes, I’d even be so bold as to say it could act as a “gateway” sour beer for those who are on the fence about exploring the funk-forward beer market — a craft genre that constantly has new companions.
Another Bruery sour, the Tart of Darkness, is also available within Bistro’s bottled beer lineup. Click here to explore their full, extensive beer list. Click here to learn more about The Bruery.
Be sure to catch Tyler King, Sr. Director of Brewing Operations from The Bruery, chat about Oude Tart in the video below, as well.
