Mark Carmignani
Founded by Joshua Haley, Texian Brewing Co. began in the fall of 2012 and is located near to Houston in the city of Richmond. The term Texian is an old moniker that predates the Texas Revolution and was used to denote immigrants in the area. The brand focuses heavily on history, tying each beer to a local story. Who doesn’t want to learn about history while getting drunk, in fact, someone should make a show about that. Oh… wait.
Today’s beer is Aurora and the history behind the name refers to a piece of folklore that involves an alien spacecraft crashing into a farmer’s windmill in Aurora, Texas.
It is a golden sour ale aged on apricots and oak. Not a whole lot of info is available on the beer. No bottling date, no ingredients, hell, they even left off the alcohol percentage entirely from the label. Apparently a useless mythos about some farmer trying to drum up interest in his dying town with alien folklore was more important than informing customers about the actual contents of the bottle.
The pour produced a fuzzy orange body reminiscent of apricots, go figure, in liquid form. A large slightly orange head formed and then dissipated quickly. The aroma is sweet candied apricots, orange pith, a hefty dose of diacetyl, and blue cheese. The oak is missing from the aroma.
Tasting reveals lots of generic sweetness dominating over all other aspects. There is a miniscule sour note and juicy peach flavor behind all that sugar. Diacetyl is also notable in the flavor profile. Again no oak is present. The mouthfeel is medium with plenty of carbonation and leaves the palate sticky as if I was drinking fruit syrup.
