Saltfire Mobius Trp (In Bruges) and Offset Fast Hand 

• Mike Riedel

Saltfire - Mobius Trp (In Bruges): Belgian-style sour ales are known for their distinct sharp, fruity, sour and tart flavors, which are created by special yeast strains. They're quite complex, produced under the age-old tradition of long-term cask aging in oak, and the blending of young and old beers.

White foam settles to wisps, with a solid collar and spotty lacing over the lightly-hazed red-brown body. I get a flash of strawberries in the aroma, and definitely some red berries. Nice oaky tannins emerge, with very light pinot notes. I do get a little metallic aroma that comes and goes, but other than that nice light acidity, it smells spot-on for the style: wet wood, lemony lactic acidity, tart cherry, perhaps a hint of balsamic vinegar. There is, however, surprisingly little sweetness for the style, making it somewhat barrel-dominated.

The taste is similar to the nose, with nice barrel notes, oak, maybe a slight flash of vanilla and a hint of caramel malt to support the lactic and oaky notes. The wine barrels impart an acidity and vinous tang that I don't normally get from the Belgian foudre-based takes on this style. Nice red berries are present, but with light wine notes, and good vinegar flavor but without the biting sourness, plus a solid malt backbone without being sweet. Finish has an assertive tartness, complementing the medium body, pleasant carbonation and dry, oaky texture. Some lingering stickiness reveals the base beer's 8.0 percent ABV, but there's not much noticeable alcohol, as one would expect.

Verdict: This was a very nicely done Flanders red featuring excellent barrel notes. The finish isn't aggressively tart—or, more importantly, it doesn't leave your palate too phlegmy, which is really impressive.

Offset - Fast Hand: This new take on a West Coast-style IPA focuses on some new American-grown hop varieties (HBC 586 and Strata) combined with some classics (Centennial and Simcoe). These new-school hops, combined with the tried-and-true, really deliver an amazing blend of stone fruit, citrus and tropical notes on top of a bit of that classic resin and pine you remember from when West Coast IPA was all there was.

This 16-ounce can pours into a shaker glass with a clear golden body and one finger of foamy head. The bartender started to pour it before I could stop them, so head retention could have been much better; the foam dies to a small ring at the edges, with several small sheets of lacing. There's citrus right as the can opens, with a mix of tropical and stone fruits absolutely saturating the nose. Sweet and ripe stone fruits lead the way, with huge peach, apricot, mango and nectarine notes supported by dank, tangerine, citrus oil, melon and bubble gum. It all suggests a medium sweetness and cereal grains.

It becomes a bit grassy and has an herbal bitterness and a tea-like flavor on the taste buds, contrasting the incredibly juice-forward aroma. You get fruity hints with grapefruit, bitter orange, mango and papaya, plus bitter herbal, floral, melon, bubble gum and cereal grains. This moderately sweet, light-to-medium-bodied brew features a moderate level of carbonation; the texture is frothy and foamy, ending with an herbal bitterness.

Verdict: This one was constantly pulling my expectations back and forth, but in the end felt like a good marriage of two different styles of WCIPA. While nothing mind-blowing, it's still a damn tasty IPA at a perfect 6.3 percent ABV.

If you want Offset's stuff to take home, you're going to have to make a trip to Park City, though plenty of bars in SLC—like The Bayou, Slackwater and Beerhive—have them to enjoy on site. Saltfire's In Bruges is a very limited batch that can go home or be enjoyed at Saltfire's South Salt Lake brewery. As always, cheers!