PASTORE - blackcurrant waterbeach weisse

Pastore are an outfit hailing from the famously hilly landscape of Cambridgeshire, second only to Flanders' vertiginous horizons. They're new to me, and focus on mixed-fermentation and sour beers, with some interesting winemaker collaborations and a recent brew with the similarly minded, and generally excellent, Little Earth Project.

Whilst fruited sours are delightful when done well, they also tend to be pretty straightforward - depending on the strength and what's added, you usually have an idea of what you'll get. Pastore have neatly upended such presumptions by switching out a standard ale yeast for the current brewing hotness, a kveik strain. Kveik is a loose family of yeasts unified mainly by the fact they've been harvested from Norwegian farmers' traditional brewing cultures. They've all sorts of unexpected properties, but as certain strains add lovely soft and tropical fruit notes, you see them being used in hazy IPAs (look up Lars Marius Garshol's blog - https://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/ - and accompanying book for a better explanation).

So, at the very least, this adds an element of surprise to my drink, but how is it? Well, it pours a soft, almost glowing, opaque purple-pink, with a white fluffy head that succumbs quickly.
The nose is both recognisably a fruited kettle sour, with fresh, lush blackcurrants and a tart edge, but there's a whole other element in there - almost beetroot sherbet - and hints of blueberry and a coppery note.

To drink, it feels remarkably full-bodied for its strength (4.3%) and acidity, with a decent carbonation keeping it spritzy. The fruit is immediately apparent, with a big hit of freshly picked blackcurrants rather than Ribena, but other elements come through - very ripe apricot, slightly underripe peach, watermelon, gooseberry and, at the finish, that beetroot hint comes through again as an earthy note. The lactobacillus culture gives you a lovely coolness, gooseberry fool on a hot day, and the finish is dry with a hint of raspberry pips.

I'm worried that my description might make it all sound a bit disco, but this is a really delightful spin on something that was getting a bit too familiar. Kveik has occasionally just been used as a gimmick or for the novelty, but here it adds a marvelous extra dimension.

Now, I'm just jealous that I've not been able to try out the Passionfruit and guava version the Folkestone branch had on tap...

Pastore. Blackcurrant Waterbeach Weisse.