Utah Beer reviews: SaltFire's Mobius Trip and The Women of Wasatch 

• Mike Riedel

Saltfire - Mobius Trip (Blueberry): The latest in Saltfire's foeder sour program features a blueberry infusion. If you're not familiar, foeders are large oak vats that ferment beers and wines, and impart woody character to the finished products. Saltfire's foeders are dosed with brettanomyces, and aged to enhance that yeast's souring profile. When ready, it can be served as is, or dosed with fruit.

This version has a reddish-purple color, almost like cranberry juice. The pour is azy, with a thin white head that fades and a good amount of visible carbonation. It fills the room with an acetic tartness immediately after opening the bottle. The beer's aroma is different, though, revealing much more fruit—ripe, juicy blueberries along with red wine barrels, and even mulled wine, providing a fruity sweetness. This gets coated up by a fermented fruit tartness, but it exhibits more of a supportive quality, rather than swallowing the beer's fruitiness, which happens in many other sour/funky ales. It's really lovely on the nose with a marmalade note to it, blending perfectly into a pleasant funkiness.

The taste begins almost sparkling, revealing a dough minerality among bready malts and a defined lemon-peel tartness. The fruits are definitely there, while not as pronounced as on the nose, somehow hidden underneath the lively carbonation. Blueberries form an interesting flavor, picking up the bready malts from the beginning, while adding sweeter pulp features to it, which then turn dry, due to notable lemon rind. It finishes with a slightly tart blueberry fruitiness on the back end of the palate, which turns out rich and multi-layered after the high carbonation settles down a bit. It has a lower carbonation and a light, truly refreshing body.

Verdict: One of the better locally-made barrel sours I have had in some time. While being focused on the fruits, the beer provides enough sourness to let the blueberries become interesting on the tongue, while remaining incredibly refreshing and easy-drinking. It has a great, soft mouthfeel to it, with a very balanced sourness, highlighting the fruit.

Wasatch - Women of Wasatch Imperial Hazy: This beer was made with the 2023 Pink Boots hop blend, and pours a very hazy light orange-juice color, with a one-finger head of fluffy white foam featuring a good level of retention, fading over time to leave a decent sum of foamy lace on the sides of the glass. The aroma is rather strong with sweet citrus, including tons of tangerine and orange. Along with these smells comes a moderately strong showing of sweet grapefruit, as well as some light smells of herb and grass. Overall, it's sweet and inviting.

The taste begins as one may have expected from the nose with lots of sweeter citrus, as well as some light grapefruit and grassy hop. The citrus is mostly of a tangerine nature, but is accompanied by some orange juice and light tropical fruit sweetness as well. At the same time, some herbal and more grassy hop notes begin working their way onto the tongue, all while the tangerine gets slightly stronger. Toward the end of the taste, a little bit of hay joins the rest and ends up leaving one with a sweet and citrusy taste to linger on the tongue.

Verdict: It's a decent NEIPA that is accessible, and one of the better options out there. I think that the nicest thing about it is that it does achieve that citrus effect without advertising itself as such. In my experience, the ones that claim to achieve the juicy profile often fall short.

These are both in limited production, so move on these sooner rather than later. As always, cheers!