In the movie “The Princess Bride”, Inigo Montoya (played brilliantly by Mandy Patinkin) upon learning the whereabouts of his father’s killer, exclaims “There will be blood tonight.”* Other than an obscure movie reference, what on earth does this have to do with a beer review you ask. Well, our ever present and omnipresent COMDB translation department has seamlessly shifted gears from German to Spanish and they tell us “Sangria” in Spanish and Portuguese translates to “bloodletting”. An obvious reference to the colour of a traditional sangria*, which is a red wine concoction of questionable content. So I am sampling a Sawdust City sangria, there will be blood tonight.
Originally I saw the name and cover art of this beer and immediately thought of Kim Mitchell’s coming of age song “Patio Lanterns”. “Those patio lanterns, lighting up our lives”. Of course those kids were drinking lemonade, not sangrias or beers. Speaking of beers, there is a beer to review if you can call it that.***
I haven’t tried a Sawdust City brew I didn’t like…… until now. I like that Sawdust City tries different things and works on the cutting edge, but this time they ended up on the bleeding edge. This brew doesn’t work on so many levels.
It pours dark red approaching amber, clear and bubbly. A nice white lampshade on this lantern. The aroma is confusing and strange; fruit, sweet, malt, I wouldn’t be surprised to smell the kitchen sink in there. First swig is a mix of fizzy fruit of some unknown origin battling with some background malt. A floral fruit fiasco. The real trick to these odd pairings is to always remember this is first and foremost a beer, so the flavours need to be subtle, suggestive, seductive and slight. The sangria flavours in this brew are about as subtle as a collection agency letter. Take a sangria and mix it with a beer? It just doesn’t work, simple as that.
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