Tasting Notes: New Glarus Enigma

Appearance: Pours a dark but translucent pinkish red.  Thin light pink head, which dissipated quickly, with no lacing.

Aroma: Funky and tart.  A barnyard funk, but still a sour cherry tartness to it.

Mouthfeel: Light.  Rolls right off the tongue.  More carbonation/effervescence than I was expecting based on the small head.

Flavors:  Tart at the front, then cherry and vanilla come out.  Almost tastes like canned cherry pie filling.  Finishes with a little barnyard funk, a touch of vanilla, and a very strong sour apple sourness.

Overall: Not my favorite sour or fruit beer, or even my favorite New Glarus sour or fruit beer.  Definitely nothing bad about this brew, but nothing really excited me either.  This might actually be my least favorite New Glarus beer so far, and it's hard to put a finger on exactly why.  Where their other sours and fruit beers not being overtly or offensively sour, and their hoppier beers being a bit malty comes across as balance and finesse, and even approachability across styles or even to non-beer drinkers, this one just seems too sweet, light bodied, and bland for a barrel-aged sour, but not quite malty or mild enough to make it an approachable session beer.  Again, definitely nothing bad about this beer, but if I had a fridge full of the full New Glarus lineup, this would probably be my last choice.

Tasting Notes: New Glarus Raspberry Tart

Appearance: Pours a deep but translucent amber, with a slight red tint.  Effervescent, with lots of little bubbles rising while being poured, and while sitting.  Interesting for such an effervescent beer, also had a decent sized, off white, almost light caramel colored head, with great retention, but minimal lacing.

Aroma: Sweet and tart raspberry.  Just a tiny bit of funk.

Mouthfeel: Fairly light, but does leave a little bit of a syrupy sensation behind.

Flavors: Well balanced.  Starts out just the right amount of tart, noticeable but not offputting.  Gets sweet, without ever being syrupy or sickeningly sweet, with a subtle vanilla note, and rounds out just tart enough to pucker your lips a little bit and leave you wanting more.

Overall: Good beer.  Tart enough to please us sour-lovers, but balanced and gentle enough that even people who might not usually drink sours could drink it.  Sweet enough to please some unlikely beer drinkers, without being syrupy or tasting artificial like some popular framboise.  A great beer to introduce a wine or cocktail drinker to craft beer.  And a great fruit/sour beer to introduce a beer drinker who might not usually drink them.  Not a lot of malt or hop flavors, but also not quite the same as a lot of better known fruit beers or sours.  Definitely will be picking up some more of this when I am back in the dairy land.

Tasting Notes: New Glarus Serendipity

This beer is subtitled  "Happy Accident Fruit Ale" and the story of the beer is printed on the side of the label.  There was a drought in Wisconsin, which made the cherry harvest less than ideal, and also made it difficult/expensive to produce Belgian Red, one of New Glarus's most popular beers.  So along with what they could get of the cherry harvest, they bought apples and cranberries, and made this fruit ale with all three, using wild fermentation.  Sounds interesting.  Now for the tasting notes:
Appearance: Poured a deep, brownish red.  A little more translucent than a Flanders Red, but similar color schemes going on.  The head was interesting.  Solid, firm base, but also some effervescence, almost like a glass of champagne.  Watching the beer itself after pouring, and even the top of the thicker head, you could see smaller bubbles rising to the top and popping through the foam.

Aroma: A tiny bit of green apple bite, but mostly sour cherry.

Mouthfeel: Light, rolls right over your tongue.  Definitely pick up on the same effervescence I noticed in the appearance after pouring.

Flavor: Starts off with tart cherry, then moves into the more sour cranberry flavor, then finishes on the sweeter side of the cherry, with a lingering sweet/tart cherry finish.  I don't get a ton of the apple on the palate.  Not as sour as I was expecting from a sour/wild fermented beer mad with three tart/sour fruits.  Good balance between the sweetness of the malt and fruit and the tart/sour side of the beer.  Doesn't leave you puckered up at the beginning or finish like a lot of sours do, but definitely a refreshing sourness to it.

Overall: Great.  Would definitely buy this regularly if they distributed out here (my current stash of New Glarus was smuggled back to California from a side trip on my Thanksgiving voyage).  Probably a little less sour than some "sour" fans would like, but also more sessionable and drinkable for the average beer drinker than a lot of other sours.  I could definitely see myself having more than one of these, unlike a lot of other sours I like.  Also, at 5.1%, wouldn't be so terrible to have a few.  I hope they decide to keep this beer around even if the cherry harvest is nicer to them next year .