Name: Reverie
Brand: Martin House Brewing Company
Availability: InStock

Martin House Brewing Company put five new beers into the world this week. Reverie is the quietest of them.

It is a pomegranate sour ale at 5.2 percent, and that is close to the whole specification. No barrel, no stack of tropical fruit, no dessert flavoring. The Fort Worth brewery has said nothing further about it than the style.

The restraint is the part worth noting. Fruited sours usually reach for fruit that is sweet on its own, so that the sugar and the acid pull against each other. Mango, raspberry and passion fruit all take that job. Pomegranate does not. It arrives tart, with a light tannic grip behind it, which means it layers onto the beer's acidity rather than balancing it.

At 5.2 percent it also stays a session-weight beer. That is a long way from the 10 and 11 percent releases sharing the announcement with it.

Reverie is out now. Martin House lists stock through its own beer finder, and the Fort Worth taproom is open daily from noon.

Editor’s Take

Pomegranate is the fruit equivalent of the friend who turns up to help you move and then actually helps. It is a nuisance to prepare, it stains everything within reach, and the yield per unit of effort is frankly insulting. In exchange it hands over a flavor nothing else quite gives you: sharp, faintly tannic, and just red enough to make a beer look like it means business.

And it is the only thing in this can, which I find quietly thrilling. Fruited sour beer as a category has spent years learning to stack - three fruits, four fruits, a raft of lactose underneath, a name suggesting a confection your dentist has opinions about. One fruit at 5.2 percent is the harder trick, because there is nowhere for it to hide. Reverie is going out with a single idea and no backup singers. Good.

Source & Editorial

JollyPint independently prepares release articles using information published by breweries through newsletters, websites, and other official public communications. Brewery-supplied descriptions and tasting notes are reported as provided, while editorial context is added by JollyPint.

Reverie Leans on Pomegranate Alone, a Fruit Already Tart

Martin House has a 5.2 percent pomegranate sour in this week's release batch. One fruit, no stacking, and a fruit that arrives with its own tartness rather than pushing back against the beer's.

Source & Editorial