Brewery – Braxton
Beer – Hand Picked: Blueberry
Style – Sour Blonde Ale
ABV – 5% ABV

Handpicked Blueberry Sour Blonde Ale is aged in wine barrels with lactobacillus for 12 months and spends three additional months aging on locally sourced blueberries picked fresh from Bright Star Acres in Demossville, KY. An adventure awaits in this beautiful, light purple beer with bright acidity. You’ll find subtle notes of peaches & apricots and a complex layer of tannins & oak – all capped off with a burst of fresh, jammy blueberry.

They aren’t messing around.

This is the first mixed fermentation sour from the folks down at Braxton in Covington, Kentucky – a brewery that has hung their hat on things like traditional lagers, a great year-round hazy IPA, and a line of seltzers that took Cincinnati by storm. On one hand, it’s tough to imagine that they can do so many different things well… but on the other, with each product, it becomes less of one as you learn how talented their brewing team is.

This beer was released on Saturday, March 5th, 2022 in 500ml bottles, and with the single barrel nature of the beer, it won’t last long before being snatched up by local beer fans… so if you’re reading this, you’ll have to act fast!

This beer gets me really excited about this new series, that they’re dubbing ‘From The Woods’ – these are single barrel beers, and the fact that the first one they dropped was this? It means that they are definitely approaching it much differently than any of their other barrel-aged projects. I can’t wait to see what we’re in store for later down the road!

My Thoughts On Handpicked: Blueberry

Before I dive into my thoughts on this, I have to let you know that I didn’t pay for this beer – Braxton was kind enough to gift me a bottle – which while that doesn’t change my thoughts on the beer, I think you should know off the top.

Now… let’s start with my first impression which wasn’t necessarily positive. The branding. It is vastly different than anything else that Braxton is doing – and it doesn’t fit into their lineup very well at all. This looks like a product from a different brewery. With that being said: this product is unlike anything that Braxton has done so far… so I’m not sure that it’s even a real issue. A new line can look different, and the more that I think about it – the more that I think that it’s not really an issue.

The beer, though? I have nothing to say that isn’t good.

It starts with the way it looks in your glass. A bright, light purple color, it’s stunning when you hold it up to the light.

Aromas are full of fruit, from the obvious berries you get notes of peaches, too… with a light funky earthiness that reminds me of sitting outside in the summertime with a light breeze blowing.

It tastes bright, bold, and definitely tart. The fruit brings it together and really keeps the whole thing balanced. Every sip of this beer brings more and more little notes of earthiness behind it all. You can easily get lost in sipping away at this and finish the bottle well before you thought you would.

Insanely good.