Blindman Brewing is now on their 8th iteration of their kettle sour series, wherein they mix up the hops each time.  Here, they’re employing the Summer and Centennial varietals.

This 355ml can pours a cloudy, pale golden yellow color, with four fingers of puffy, rocky, and somewhat bubbly chalky white head, which leaves some well dispersed defrosting back windshield lace around the glass as it slowly but surely evaporates.

It smells of zesty domestic citrus rind, lightly soured milk, indistinct exotic melon flesh (cantaloupe, maybe?), grainy and bready pale malt, and a hint of dense forest floral detritus green hop bitters.  The taste is fleshy orange, lime, and white grapefruit pith, some further blended melon bowl fruitiness, faint lacto sour notes, gritty and grainy pale malt, an ethereal sense of cereal-forward wheatiness, mild flinty esters, and more understated grassy, leafy, and faintly spicy verdant hoppiness.  The carbonation is average in its palate-stabilizing frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and mostly smooth, just a bit of fruit acridity perhaps marring the surface appearance here.  It finishes trending dry, the tart and sour essences quietly shuffling us out the door.

Overall, this has to be among my favourites thus far in this ongoing project – the Tasmanian Summer hop’s fruitiness really melds well with the workhorse Centennial.  Easy to drink, and very refreshing, #8 is simply, well, great!