Odell’s newest release hits at the right time

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This week, Odell Brewing kicked off their “cellar series” by releasing The Meddler, an oud bruin ale. There will be six more releases in the barrel-aged series this year.

The oud bruin, which means “old brown” in Dutch, is named for its color, which is created during a long aging process. Odell brewed their take on the oud bruin according to traditional Belgian standards, using specific brewing, barreling and aging guidelines.

Brewed as a brown ale with little bitterness, Odell hit the batches with souring agents and lactobacillus before sending it to toasted oak barrels. There was some variability in the aging process, as some batches only received eight months of barrel-aging, while others received up to two years. A small amount of newer, unsour beer was added to each batch so as to balance the brew. The barrels were all then blended for consistency, and the resulting complexity gave birth to the brew’s name: The Meddler.

What results is a drinkable sour brown ale that has an 8.6 percent ABV. The flavors you’re supposed to pick out, according to the brewery, are “sweet vanilla oak, light fruit berry and a tart cherry finish.”

Odell has been working on The Meddler for three years after the beer’s initial run in 2012.

“This beer is a unique style,” said Brent Cordle, Odell’s pilot brewer and barrel aging manager, in a press release. “Recently, we relocated our barrel room and now have the ability with our new wild barrel house to attack projects like this with more control over risk of cross contamination. The Meddler received a lot of love the last time we released it. It was a brewery favorite, and the excitement was apparent in all the employees’ eyes once we announced it would be coming back this year.”

I was able to get my hands on a bottle of The Meddler from my local beer store, eager to try a marriage of two of my go-to beer styles: brown ales and sours. It’s got a light mahogany, slightly cloudy color that makes you, the drinker, curious about what you’re about to get into. It’s got a zippy sourness, for sure, and more than anything, I tasted that tart cherry finish as well as raspberry. There’s also a nice foundation of malt, leftover from the beer’s origins as a high gravity brown ale, which makes the brew easily drinkable. It’s also slightly sweet, which I don’t mind generally, and particularly in a sour.

It also strikes me that The Meddler hits at a pretty good time of year — you might say Odell has this whole marketing thing figured out. As the sweet and sour smells of spring start to come (and then go because of some snow dump, and then come again), The Meddler is at once a contemplative sipper and a taste-awakener. It is at once warming and delicate.

You can pick up The Meddler in 750 mL corked bottles throughout Boulder County. Or you can stop into their Fort Collins brewery to get it straight from the source.