Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Brasserie de Blaugies Saison d'Epeautre

Wow, it's been entirely too long since I made a post. Sorry for that. Anyway, every once in a while I like to get a beer that Julia wants. Both of us are big fans of the saison style, so it tends to be what she picks out. This time she chose Saison d'Epeautre, a belgian saison brewed with spelt. I'm not terribly familiar with it, but apparently it's a type of grain that's a wheat and wild grass hybrid. To me that just screams saison, so I'm excited for a taste of it.

The cork exploded out of the bottle with excessive force when I opened it. Hopefully it didn't dent my ceiling when it hit it, so be forewarned if you pick up a bottle. Immediately on opening I was greeted with a wave of grassy funk. Unsurprisingly, the beer grew a substantial pillowy white head floating on top of its staw-colored body. This beer really has a sort of bitter grass aroma that you only find in a Belgian saison, but with a little sweetness that comes through around the edges.

The first taste was strangely clean. A touch of grass, and some wheat. If this is what spelt tastes like consider me very intrigued. In the back of the mouth is a not quite peppery mild spice sensation. There isn't a lot of the funk, horse blanket, or similar flavors that I was expecting from the aroma. In fact this beer is extremely mild and clean. Perhaps there are some delicate fruit flavors, like peach or apricot, but they are hard to pick out.

In the mouth the beer is light bodied, and very highly carbonated. It's also quite dry. There is a little feeling of warmth in the throat, but I feel like it's more from the prickly carbonation than from the alcohol content.

All in all, this was an interesting brew. It's extremely drinkable and refreshing despite its lack of the expected saison flavors. It's hard to determine if there's any brett influence in this beer although I can only assume there is. I probably will not come back to this beer again, but it was worth a try, and more importantly makes me want to look into spelt. The intensity of the grassy funk aroma must come from that since it doesn't come through nearly as much in the flavor.

- Adam

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