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

Stillwater/Mikkeller Two Gypsies - Our Side

Even though Stillwater and Mikkeller are in different countries, they have one thing in common - they don't have a home. Both breweries consider themselves "gypsy brewers", as they travel around borrowing and renting equipment from different breweries to produce their beers. Having had beers from both breweries, I was particularly interested in this one.

The beer pours initially with a substantial billowing white head. Light, fluffy, and with large bubbles. It has a dark golden hue, and is somewhat cloudy. The head sticks around for a little while, but dissipates to an 1/8th of a finger thick that hangs around for a long time. Through the glass there is some nice lacing as well. As the beer warms up, some of the haze disappears.

The aroma had a decided funk quality to it right away, with wild grassy and hay notes. Sweetness follows underneath, with an apple-like sense to it. It's almost a little woody as well, if I close my eyes I can picture standing in an area of dense overgrowth. There's a mix of flowers and dirt, although I somewhat miss the horse-blanket that sometimes accompanies wild yeast.

The first sip has a slight sweetness up front, with some decidedly funky notes and a substantial bitterness in the back. There's a bit of grass, and some citrus hop flavor as well. Lots of classic saison flavors come through as well, with a dominating Brettanomyces character. The bitterness and hay flavors linger in the mouth, leaving the flavors of this beer with you for minutes after swallowing. As it warmed up, I also noticed a little bit of a cider-like apple flavor. The presence of the hops in the flavor is probably the most unique thing about this beer, even if they mostly just boost the already classic saison flavors.

The beer is pretty strongly carbonated, which is a little much for me but not unusual for the style. The prickly bubbles tend to overwhelm my palate making it feel like I'm missing out on flavors. Surprisingly I felt that there was a bit of warmth from the alcohol in the throat, even though this beer is 7.5% and I've had much stronger ones with no trace of the alcohol.

Overall, I felt that this was a classic saison. It's easily drinkable but has some nice funk to it. The fruit flavors and sweetness add a decent balance without being cloying. This collaboration is well done, although I don't see that it brings much new to the table. The added hop quality is somewhat unique, but it doesn't change much about the style. Maybe it's just that the added bitterness seems subdued to me after so many hoppy American styles that I've had recently. Either way, this beer was still delicious and worth trying.

- Adam

The Bruery Saison Rue

I haven't had a lot from The Bruery before. I've known that they have a reputation for producing very good beers, but most of the time when I've headed to the liquor store, I've had something particular that I wanted to pick up. As it happened, everything I went to pick up this last time (Dogfish Head Poppaskull and Alaskan Smoked Porter) was not available. After a little searching around, I thought Saison Rue from The Bruery was the way to go.

First off, I have to admit that I failed epically at pouring this beer. I let it go until the head reached the top of my glass, but it just kept growing, with driblets of wasted beer cascading onto my counter. As a result, I had a thick layer of marshmallow-fluff head sitting on top of this hazy amber brew. Be warned that this beer supports a massive head that sticks around and clings to the glass, so pour with caution!

The first thing I noticed was the slight pepper spice aroma interspersed with wild fruitiness. The taste is a balance of light hay and grass, a touch of lemon, a surprising bit of sweetness, and a lingering suggestion of pepper. Underneath I also caught a hint of toast or bread in the beer.

I didn't find the beer to be as dry as some saisons, with the sweetness of it enhancing the fruity quality rather than being cloying. The body was somewhat heavier than average, with a lower level of carbonation that startled me at first. I should note of course that this was a welcome change in this beer and not at all unpleasant.

I found this saison to be a refreshing deviation from the normal within one of my favorite styles. Things that I would normally find a little off-putting, like a lack of bitterness, some sweetness, and a heavier body actually meld together in this beer, leaving me with a feeling of sublime balance on a razor's edge.

- Adam

Southampton Saison Deluxe

I have been a huge fan of the saison style for a while now. This is especially true for the really funky, loaded down with brett, smells like a barn yard kind of wild beer that a saison sometimes turns out to be. Whenever I get a beer that has that horse-blanket kind of aroma, I get a little bit excited. I don't know what it is that I love so much about these beers, there's just a wild and untamed quality to them that you don't really find anywhere else.

My favorite saison so far has been DuPont's Avec Les Bons Voeux. However, this beer was only rated as the 5th best beer of the style on Beer Advocated, with the Southampton Saison Deluxe rated 4th highest (since the time I got it they have switched positions though). The funny thing was that when I picked up this beer, I didn't even realize that, it was more or less a random choice by Julia. In any case, Avec Les Bons Voeux has been my baseline for comparison for all saisons since, and when I saw the ranking of the Southampton I was definitely curious about how it would stack up.

When I first poured the beer, I knew it was off to a good start. Even though the aroma was a bit faint, I got a nice funky smell right off the bat. It was dominated by grass and hay, with a bit of an earthy quality to it as well. The grass smell lent just a bit of sweetness to it that was quite pleasant.

The beer poured a slightly hazy golden straw color, and supported a big foamy white head, about 3 fingers thick. The head was sturdy with good retention, and left lots of spotty lacing as I progressed through the glass.

The taste had a funky brett character to it as well, along with a touch of sweetness. There was a grassy quality along with a mild bitterness in the back of the mouth. I also noted a slight peppery spiciness to it. In the middle of the mouth I found a bit of apple quality, and a little bit of a tart aftertaste. Really I thought the smell was a pretty good indicator of the beer's actual taste.

In the mouth, the beer had a slightly thicker quality than I expected. I had anticipated that the body would be fairly light, but it was really on the lighter side of medium-bodied. The carbonation levels were good and moderately high, with tingling bubbles. I found that there was just a bit of coating of the mouth as well as a touch of warmth in the throat. The beer was pretty dry, but not the driest I've had, especially from a saison.

Overall, I thought the beer was very good, and decently flavorful. Despite it's 7.4% ABV, it really didn't feel all that strong. It has a decent brett character, but certainly wasn't over the top. It was fairly well balanced, even though I did note that it was a bit sweet. It certainly was easy to drink, and I don't think I would get sick of drinking it. I do still think that the Avec Les Bons Vouex was better though. This beer didn't quite have the completely untamed nature that I just love in a saison.

- Adam

Clipper City Red Sky At Night

When I was in high school Solomon and I always used to joke along with our friend Ben about the Clipper City brand. This was when none of us knew anything about beer, and Solomon's parents would occasionally get stuff from them to drink. Since none of us had ever heard of Clipper City before, I guess we kind of just assumed it was crap. So when I saw Clipper City beer at State Line, I really wasn't all that interested in trying it out. However, when I was reading an article about saisons online, Clipper City's Red Sky At Night came up. It perked my interest up, so I decided to buy it next time I was there.

The beer poured a deep golden color, very clear despite the yeast the bottle is conditioned with. I didn't get any head out of a normal pour. There's just a little dusting of bubbles on the top.

The smell of the beer is a mixture of slightly sweet hay and horse blanket. It's a smell that's both sweet and sour, with some hints of the alcohol as well. I think I smelled a little bit of apple juice in there too. The smell of a saison is generally one of my favorite parts, since there's a exhilarating sort of wildness to it. This is supposed to come from the wild yeast used in making the beer. This is one style that I'm very interested in trying to make at some point.

The taste at first is of grain, a bit sour. It's got somewhat of a biscuit quality to it. I thought I got a touch of white grape as well, but barely noticeable. There's a touch of bitterness on the back of the tongue, but this tastes more like it's from yeast than from hops. I noticed a slight bit of alcohol in the flavor, and possibly some apricot. It also seemed to be a little bit watery.

The beer has a good medium body and a decently strong level of carbonation. There's a nice smooth coating left over the teeth. It's a bit warming in the throat, not surprising since it's a bit on the strong side. It weights in at 7.5%.

Overall it's a good offering for my first beer from Clipper City. It's a decent flavor, but not the strongest, and although it's not the best saison I've ever had it's still very good. It's very easy to drink since it's not overwhelming, but at the same time it would be hard to drink too many because of the alcohol content. If it had a bit less alcohol in it, I could drink them all night. I could definitely stand to go back to this one a few times in the future.

- Adam

Brasserie Dupont Avec les Bons Voeux

The name simply means "With the best wishes from the brewery Dupont". Originally it was given as a gift by the brewery to their best clients, but with its popularity they decided to commercially sell the beer. It's an unfiltered light beer, in the same style as the famous Saison Dupont, but brewed in restricted quantities. The brewery is still independent and family run.

This beer poured a cloudy golden brown, with some floating white sediment appearing in the glass. There was also a huge rocky off-white head that had amazing retention. Lacing was left all over the glass from the beer.

The smell was somewhat bitter, with a touch of skunk apparent in the nose at first, but really not in an unpleasant way. There was a huge wildness to the smell, grassy, earthy, with some wild flowers mixed in. Spice comes through a bit as well, but it's mostly the smell of wild Belgian yeast. There's always this amazingly natural and wild smell to saisons that I just can't get enough of.

The taste just overwhelms the mouth with the very definition of a wild beer. It's like Ommegeddon mixed with Duvel. There was banana and wild flowers present in the taste. It just had this raw quality to it that's hard to describe. It's really not all that sweet tasting, but rather a nice grassy hop bitterness coats the tongue. Normally I wouldn't like a hop dominated flavor but this beer pulls it off so well. It's just wild and untamed. It's a bit tart tasting, but just amazing.

The beer is light in body, with strong tingling carbonation. It even feels good in the mouth. There's a bit of smooth coating left on the teeth, and some warming when it went down the throat. Overall the feel is just light and a bit airy.

Wow. This was an insanely easy beer to drink. I think saisons may be at the top of my favorite styles, and this is definitely the best I've had yet. It even beat out Ommegeddon, which was one of my favorite beers. It's hard to believe that something this good is only rated #4 on Beer Advocate, but I haven't had any of the ones rated higher yet. It's also pretty hard to believe that this beer was 9.5% ABV, since it barely had any indication of the level of alcohol in it. I don't think beer gets much better than this.

- Adam