Peach Tart
Festina Peche recently appeared in my refrigerator. Well, it did not just appear there. I bought it, stuck it in the fridge and a couple of busy days ensued. In short, I forgot about it, until I moved two purple kohlrabi and a jug of orange juice to “discover” a four-pack of Festina Peche hiding.
This represents the 2015 release in what the Delaware-based Dogfish Head Craft Brewery calls Dogfish Seasonal Art Series. Festina Peche is the 7th in the series.
The brewery describes it as a “neo-Berliner-style Weiss.” I’m sure that’s why I bought it. Berliner Weiss is the first sour beer I ever tasted, probably a couple decades ago, introducing me to the concept of sour beer as a good thing, a very good thing…
Festina Peche pours like a Berliner Weiss – a pale and hazy shade of gold, with lots of tiny bubbles promising palate-prickling pleasure.
Even in this country, if a liquor store sold Berliner Weiss, it usually carried the red raspberry or green woodruff syrups that Berliners use to tone down the tartness of Berliner Weiss. Personally, I like it fine the way it is, but Dogfish Head executed a great idea by incorporating peach juice into the brewing process.
While I am a big fan of incorporating odd, natural ingredients into beer, I’ve not had many enjoyable peach beers. In this instance, I trusted the neo-Berliner-style Weiss description from the brewery and was not disappointed. There is very little peachiness to this beer, yet there is a distinct not quite definable fruitiness to the taste, so, I must say, a great success for a low-alcohol (4.5%) summer quencher. In fact, it’s perfectly peachy.