Hermitage Brewing Company Wins Silver Medal at 2018 GABF for Sour Cherry Sour
Congrats to San Jose’s Hermitage Brewing Company for winning silver at this year’s 2018 Great American Beer Festival held this past weekend in Denver, Colorado.
Hermitage Brewing won silver in the highly competitive ‘Fruited Wood- and Barrel-Aged Sour Beer’ category for its Hermitage Brewing Sour Cherry Sour.
The category had a total of 102 entrants vying for a medal.
Head brewer and cellarmaster Greg Filippi, who was in attendance at the awards announcement and ceremony, shared with me shortly after winning the medal:
“Super stoked to pull a GABF medal. This beer has been one of our favorites since the beginning. It’s awesome to have the judges appreciate our vision. It’s good to bring that GABF medal home to San Jose.”
Hermitage has been on quite a roll. Their GABF medal follows a World Beer Cup medal that they won earlier this year in May for their Three Tun Barrel Aged Imperial Stout.
Sour Cherry Sour Brewer’s Notes
Sour Cherry Sour is blended from more than 30 American wine barrels that lived in the cellar from six months to two-and-a-half years.
Malts: Wheat Malt, 2 Row, Unmalted Wheat
Hops: Mt. Hood hops, Sour Cherry
ABV: 6.5
More than 5,000 pounds of sour cherries were sacrificed in the making of this delicious brew, about three pounds per gallon. The beer pours a beautiful crimson red with a moderate pink head. There is a slight acidic sharpness on the nose that quickly gives way to a full-on cherry assault. That sharpness carries over into the first sip, but before the liquid has finished crossing your palette it becomes clear that the cherries are the star of this show. More tart than sour, a mild acid level allows the flavor of all those sour cherries to really shine through and also makes the beer more drinkable. There are only small traces of tannins and funk from the long Brettanomyaces fermentation and maturation in oak, but a discerning palate can pick them out between waves of cherry goodness. The beer finishes fairly dry but the delicious sweet and tart flavor of the cherries lingers, almost completely masking the 6.5% ABV. Be careful with this one, it’s dangerously good.
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Greg also let me know that there is a limited number of bottles still in stock, and that the plan is to hopefully throw a shindig in the coming weeks to celebrate the GABF award-winning beer.
Congrats, again, to Hermitage Brewing!
Cheers! Prost! Gunbae!
~Andy