Devious and delicious. I didn't realise it was 10%while drinking this one. Well worth it for those who love sour

Brut Yeast straight away on the nose along with chocolate and rasperry. Extremely chocolatey and almost savoury , not one for me this... in fact i dont know why i bought it . Still its quite the dessert drink if thats what floats your boat.

'Red velvet cake imperial pastry sour' is quite the off putting description. A few years ago there's no way in hell I'd touch this with a barge pole. Experience has revealed that terms like pastry and various desserts are usually overstated. This is hazy and pale blush red just like red velvet actually! It has visible carbonation that's a couple of slow and steady streams heading for the surface. It does smell a bit cakey via a sort of buttermilk cream icing with soft and sweet berries, no clue of potential sourness to come. First sip and there's a sour hit but not a big one, cake is there straight away and persistent with a flavour of pastry coming through at the end like flan or shortcrust. It's funny, after starting off by saying these cans usually overstate the experimental taste descriptors but in this case the pastry and cake are very much front and center! Neon Raptor make mediocre to good IPAs but very good and interesting sours. Whilst not exquisite quality like Holy Goat, they have impact. Like 'Massive Piranhas', I'll never forget that brew, it made me say wow out loud to myself. This 'Velvet Banshee' isn't the same, Massive Piranhas was a complex fruit sour-bomb where as this is a cake in a can with sour strawberry. It's sour and smooth in equal measure, the smooth mouthfeel enhansing the cream icing taste. The details on the can state strawberry, honeyberry, chocolate and vanilla which makes alot of sense. Whilst I didn't pick up on the chocolate the vanilla is what translated into butter/cream for me and now I know, the chocolate transposes into the cakey backbone. Honeyberry for me is coming across like honeydew subtle sweetness. I see no lactose listed, which is a surprise but I do see blueberry listed in the ingredients. This probably enhances and provides depth to the strawberry as it often doesnt work in beer, or at least is vacant like a ghost. This is definitely an experience and although it is as cakey as it suggests, it's not sickening and awful. A richness is held back by decent balance. You don't taste alcohol and to be honest I wasn't expecting to with this much flavour elements in there, but it is hefty. Just as you wouldn't down a whole cake, you wouldn't session this beer! The buttery pastry finish is short, thankfully, which allows the berries to shine. The use of chocolate and vanilla is welcomed and surprising in this sour context as opposed to the usual Imperial stout. Coming to think of it, this is a fusion of stout and sour and that makes it more impressive. Most people wouldn't like this though, it's not approachable, it's a brew to appreciate after experiencing both the good and bad of experimental imperial sours and stouts.

Kylmää ja maukasta vaniljalla maustettua marjamehua. #SanAugustin