Portland's masters of sour  Cascade Brewing have just released  Melonius Blond, the brewery's first-ever bottled melon sour. The Northwest sour ale is a blend of blond and wheat ales aged in oak barrels for up to 14 months with cantaloupe and Summer Kiss melons. This limited offering is available in 750 ml bottles and on draft through Cascade’s regular distribution channels, as well as in-house at both its Portland area pubs.

Showcasing Oregon-grown fruit harvested at peak ripeness, Melonius Blond offers notes of fresh summer melons, orange blossoms and sour candies, with a touch of honeycomb and green peppercorn. The beer is 6.8 percent alcohol by volume.The brewery produced just 50 barrels of Melonious Blond, which is a Tier One offering; Cascade’s bottles have distinct label styles for each of the three Cascade Brewing pricing tiers, with each label within the tier utilizing distinctive colors to clearly differentiate each beer. The tiers differ by the style of beer used in the product, the type ingredients contained within, the time aged in the barrels and types of barrels used.

The next Cascade beer to be released is  Pearpawsterous, a collaboration project with  Upland Brewing in Indiana. Another limited project, Pearpawsterous features regional ingredients sourced from each brewery’s home state – Oregon-grown pears and Indiana-grown paw paws – layered over a base of sour wheat ales aged for up to 12 months in oak barrels. Paw paw fruit has a sweet, custard-like flavor somewhat similar to banana, mango, and cantaloupe. Look for this release  March 25.

About Cascade BrewingCascade Brewing has been a pioneer in the sour beer renaissance since 2006 and the proud innovator of the Northwest Sour Ale. Its distinctive sour beer blends feature fruit forward, barrel-aged ales with an emphasis on project year-to-year variation. These beers offer a complex array of flavors derived from the acid, the fruit and the residual flavors present in the barrels in which they age. The resulting beers offer a complex array of flavors and aromas derived from with each project year, capturing the unique subtleties of that year’s growing season. Cascade Brewing’s sour ales are brewed and blended in Portland, Oregon. For more information, visit  CascadeBrewing.com and join the brewery on social media @CascadeBrewing, #CascadeBrewing and #HouseofSour. Cheers to the sours; enjoy in a profoundly wise manner.