Maybe This Beer's Just Not For Me

It has been five years since BridgePort first released Stumptown Tart, and in that time they've changed brewers and much of their line has turned over.  I therefore assume that Stumptown Tart is popular enough that they've brought it back for a sixth iteration.  Originally, the idea was to create an actual tart fruit beer with, you know, acidity.  Then-brewer Karl Ockert consulted with New Glarus' Dan Carey, who of course has his own pretty-popular tart fruit ales.  They used native Marionberries and brewed a large beer but, alas, just dumped in some lactic acid to achieve the tart part. 

It was a flop, but they retooled the recipe and next year came back with a fruit beer minus the tart.  Ockert used sour cherries in an effort to add a bit of acid, but it had wandered away from the wild-yeast sense of tart the geeks expected.  In subsequent years, BridgePort reissued the beer with a rotating variety of fruit, and the '13 vintage was brewed with blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries.  And like the beers in the post-tart period, it's fine. 

It's a vibrantly-colored beer with a soft, blossomy fruit nose and a light, sweet palate.  The fruit is fresh and sweet and the beer is delicately wheaty.  I did find the finish, with a slightly tannic-bitter note, less than ideal, but it's a minor note.  Although the fruit changes year by year, there's a real coherence in the line.  If you like the Stumptown Tart, you'll like it every year no matter which fruit the brewery chooses. 

I, of course, want the tart.  Nothing showcases fruit so well as a little acidity.  In regular beers, the malt competes with the fruit, which becomes a little duller and more flaccid.  Acidity preserves flavors and aromas and deliver the fruit to one's mouth almost as if it were coming straight off the bush.  As I was drinking it, I was thinking: why not add a touch of acid malt or even do a sour mash?  I know the brewery doesn't want to make a wild ale, but this would surely give it some depth and distinction.

At one time, I would have been confident to say that these choices would make a "better" beer.  Something about traveling around the world and seeing how palates differ really highlights the subjective nature of "better," though.  If BridgePort took my advice, they'd very likely sell less beer.  More people, in other words, like it the way it is than would like my "improvements."  It's easy enough to dismiss the masses as untutored, to actually use this as evidence that it's a lesser beer.  But geeks are slaves to their own preferences, too; they love imperial stouts but give a shrug to helles.  The things different people like sometimes reflect different levels of discrimination and education, but a lot of times, it just reflects base prejudice.

So Stumptown Tart is not for me. Let's leave it at that.

Stumptown Rallies

Ah, the mutability of beer.

Back in May '08, I reviewed a big redhead who was debuting a new line of "big brews" by BridgePort. The lady was beautiful inside and outside the bottle--leggy, luxurious garnet--ah, but she was a siren. Stumptown Tart looked good, but I found it nearly undrinkable:

The sourness is wrong. I'd describe it as inorganic, like a chemical creation, rather than the interplay of yeast and sugars. Aging it in oak probably didn't help matters; although the berries add some softness and flavor, it finishes with a long, puckery dryness. Although I admired the berries in the beer, and liked the idea, whatever it was the brewery used to sour Stumptown Tart didn't work.

I had three bottles (big kudos to BridgePort for releasing these at just five bucks a pop), and the second one, tried a few months later, showed no improvement. Buoyed by that gorgeous spring day, I decided to crack the third bottle yesterday. And lo, it had finally started to taste as good as it looks.

The aroma remains mainly lactic--and now the fruit is very faint. Whatever caused that chemical sour has mostly dissipated. The result is a dryly sour beer, more balanced, light, and pleasant. The sour is still unfamiliar, but it has mellowed and become more pleasing. The flavor is still not as rich and full as I'd like, but the offensive note has finally fallen under the threshold of perception.

I have been a proponent of aging beers on this blog, and let this stand as another case-in-point. When you have as many moving parts as this beer does--high alcohol, sourness (which generally means funky living things, though BridgePort remains mum about their sour), and fruit--it's not suprising to see a change. Generally, aging fruit beers is a bad idea--the fragile vibrancy of fresh berries inevitably diminishes. It certainly did here. But obviously, you trade in that loss for other virtues.

I gave the fresh version a D rating. This is perhaps a B-; still not world class, but a startling improvement.

Stumptown Tart - Review

Let us say here at the front that BridgePort is really workin it. A couple of years ago they came out with Supris, last year they put out Hop Harvest, and now Stumptown. Clearly a brewery that likes to experiment and take chances. I particularly appreciate the journey into Belgian-style ales, an exploration far too few breweries have taken. And Supris was a a good effort and an authentic beer.

(You sense a "but" here, don't you? Read on.)

Tasting Notes
Nowhere does Stumptown Tart advertise itself as a lambic-style ale. But how are we to conclude anything but that this was the approximation of the latest "Belgian style ale" in the brewery's Big Brews line? It contains a nod to Dan Carey's famous Raspberry Tart, a beer Carey (whom BridgePort consulted) describes as a "framboise"--a traditional style of fruit lambic.

BridgePort doesn't say how they managed the sour. In traditional Belgian versions, the sour comes from wild yeasts that float through the Zenne Valley. The quality of the sour may range from dry and puckery to fertile and almost compost-y. The addition of fruit gives the beer added depth, but hardly any sweetness. The fruit becomes an essence, turning the lambic into something very similar to a dry wine.

BridgePort's version, however, has a quality unlike any lambic I've ever tasted. Let's start with the positive--the aroma and appearance of the beer beguiled. Marionberry essence rises off the glass like fresh fruit. There's a sour note there, too, and it seems very lambic-like. My two pours produced little in the way of a head, but the beer looked like a nice fruit lambic--hazy and berry purple.

It's the palate that's strange. The sourness is wrong. I'd describe it as inorganic, like a chemical creation, rather than the interplay of yeast and sugars. Aging it in oak probably didn't help matters; although the berries add some softness and flavor, it finishes with a long, puckery dryness. I had Sally try it, and she didn't like the sour note, either (though, caveat emptor, she likes sour beers less than I do). Although I admired the berries in the beer, and liked the idea, whatever it was the brewery used to sour Stumptown Tart didn't work.

I have a couple more bottles in the cellar, so I'll see if anything changes. For now, I hate to say that I can't recommend it.

Rating: D

[Update. It did change--and for the better. See this later review from February '09.]