Back in the day, I used to read the webcomic Toothpaste for Dinner regularly. Religiously. I’ve fallen out of the habit (true for most webcomics, if I’m honest), but there are still jokes that remain lodged in my brain. One such permanent gem from 2003 reads, at the bottom, “To hunt the wild hipster, one must replicate its mating call exactly.” At the top, a figure crouching behind a bush shouts, “Their first album was better! Their first album was better!!”
I fully acknowledge that I have some prominent beer hipster tendencies. But one that I try to steer clear of is the fetishizing of The First Batch. The Church of b1 is a faith held far too closely by far too many beer geeks. The only thing inherent to every first batch is literal novelty, and craft brewing has enough of that to go around already.
The internet’s gentle skewering of the new batch of New Glarus Wild Sour, a fanatically beloved beer last released in 2013, immediately pinged my radar as first batch-ism. Sure, it’s all right, the internet says, but it’s no b1 Wild Sour.
Internet, if you’ll pardon the hubris, I’ll be the judge of that.
You see, my household — my wife, specifically — amassed a small cache of 2013 Wild Sour. We both loved it, but she had a passion for Wild Sour that teetered on the brink of wild-eyed. We’ve been making our way through the stash ever since, drinking them here and there, giving them as gifts to beer-loving friends, and padding out the occasional trade with a Wild Sour +1.
One reason we mildly hoarded the last Wild Sour was because it started to disappear from shelves really fast once the out-of-towner beer fans arrived for the Great Taste of the Midwest that year. This year’s batch has moved at a respectable but sub-Strawberry Rhubarb pace, and should still be acquirable around town for a little while yet.
I poured a bottle each of 2013 and 2018 Wild Sour in adjacent glasses and put them to the test. Color: near identical. Carbonation: tipping in the fizzy favor of the older bottle, but neither held a lasting head. But these are picayune details compared to the non-visual senses.
There was no significant aroma to the 2013 Wild Sour. But my goodness, the palate’s complexity and depth. Yes, first of all, the beer has definitely oxidized a bit. But the cardboardy flavor oxidization can sometimes impart has given way here to a toffee-and-sherry sweetness that almost resembles the effect of bourbon barrel-aging.
2018 Wild Sour is a subtle exercise in plums and dark red berries. The band-aidy compounds called phenols are frequently present in wild-fermented beers, but they are minimal in the fresh batch. Online commenters have compared 2018 Wild Sour to New Glarus’ Oud Bruin and that’s not far off, but honestly, Wild Sour is just simpler this year.
The internet is right, darn it.
I wouldn’t recommend stashing a ton of 2018 Wild Sour because I don’t think it’s going to get either better or more interesting in five years, and it could get worse. I mean, any beer could get worse in your cellar, but I don’t think the odds are in 2018’s favor to show the same kind of cellar durability as 2013.
This is not to say that the new batch of Wild Sour is without merit. It’s an extremely approachable expression of the sour brown style, in the spirit of Rodenbach and Monk’s Cafe. It’s the kind of beer you could probably get someone into unfruited sours with. But you’ll still most likely end up mentioning to that new fan that yes, the first batch was better.
