Imperial Mango Sour by Hope Brewery

I’m going to start this week’s post with a big call: Hope Brewery’s Imperial Mango Sour is my favourite sour beer that I’ve ever had.  Ever.

As I’ve mentioned a few times on the blog, I certainly don’t mind a sour from time to time.  However, they’re also generally not my number one go-to beer genre.  I am also similarly ambivalent on mangoes.  Don’t love them, don’t hate them.  But this combo of mangoes and sour beer is really really something special.

This particular beer was recommended to me by my local bottle shop owner.  He tends to be a bit more into the sours than I am, but I do trust his beer judgement.  Further, the beer is from Hope Brewery from up in the Hunter who do some fantastic beers.  And (as with Dainton’s Pickle Dan) I’m more inclined to give the slightly out-there beers a shot if they come from a brewery I already know, love, and (most importantly) trust to make a delicious beer rather than just a novelty.

Bottom line is, this is a fantastic beer.  It’s definitely a sour, but I reckon it occupies that rarest of space in the beer drinker’s universe: a sour beer that even people who don’t like sours would like.  There are a few stages of flavour as you sip into this one.  The first stage is MANGO MANGO MANGO!  It really is an absolute blast of mango flavour which is joined quickly by the tart sour twinge and a similarly tart typical sour beer finish.

An interesting unique aspect of this beer as well is that it’s an imperial sour (if I’m being honest, I think that’s the first one of them I’ve seen).  So while your typical sour tends to come in somewhere roughly around the 4% mark or so, this one charges in at a very healthy 7%.  And in addition to the tart, mango-y sour taste, you get the warm slightly-boozy glow you’d normally associate more closely with an IPA or a stout.  It’s the first time I’ve experienced that combination in a beer and I found it quite enjoyable.

So to finally circle back around to my initial bold claim. For all the reasons listed above, I am more than comfortable to proclaim this my favourite sour beer I have ever drunk.  While I can’t say it’s categorically the best there is, as my sour beer palate and catalogue are nowhere near as extensive as some.  But for me, personally, the Imperial Mango Sour is my favourite and I will be purchasing it again wherever I see it in the future.