Brewed with bushels of blueberry and pomegranate and then aged over four months in oak barrels, Avery Brewing Co.’s newest addition to its barrel-aged beers is a beauty. Named after the wood nymph and goddess of fruitful abundance, Pomona pours a fleshy magenta and sparkles with rich berries and a tinge of rustic funk. That comes courtesy of the Brettanomyces, but the farmhouse yeast is kept in check thanks to lactobacillus and pediococcus, which gives the beer a creamy and tangy flavor of Greek yogurt. The malt provides a backbone to hold everything up, and the oak contributes a tingle of vanillin on the back. And then the whole experience comes to a close with palate-cleansing fruit and barrel tannins. It’s tasty stuff, a beautiful bridge beer to carry the dog days of summer into the harvest’s autumnal crackle.
