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29-05-2015, 06:57
Visit the Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog site (http://boakandbailey.com/2015/05/saisons-pt-7-more-lemon-more-sour/)
http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/saisons_pt7_hopkettle_horns_celt.jpgThis week, as part of our ongoing project (http://boakandbailey.com/2015/04/saison-season-is-open/), we tasted three UK-brewed saisons with no real connection other than that they’re from breweries we don’t really know well at all.
Hop Kettle Ginlemlii Thai Saison (330ml, 5.8% ABV, sent to us by @landells (https://twitter.com/landells))
By The Horns Vive La Brett Saison-Brett (330ml, 6.1%, £2.56 from Ales by Mail)
Celt Hallstatt Deity Farmhouse Fruit Saison (330ml, 6.6%, £1.98)
The Red Lion is a pub in Cricklade, Wiltshire, with a small brewery on site operating under the name Hop Kettle. It is a favourite of*Mark Landells who sent us three bottles*of their saison because he was eager to see it included in our taste-off. First impressions were very good: it wasn’t a weird colour, didn’t smell weird, and poured a perfectly clear gold. The carbonation was fairly low but we managed to coax a decent head from the bottle without disturbing any yeast.
http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/hop_kettle_saison.jpgThough the ingredients list doesn’t mention coriander or orange peel, the aroma*reminded us of Hoegaarden Witbier so, yes, cleverly done. The supposed Thai spicing (ginger, lemongrass, lime leaves) is thankfully restrained — a teasing*hint rather than fizzy pop flavouring. It edges towards sweet and has a syrupy, mouth-coating quality which brings to mind Belgian blonde ales or even Trappist tripels more than any saison we’ve tasted. In short, it’s a decent, clean beer with a good bit of character, and certainly a remarkable effort for a small pub brewery.*Overall, we concluded that it isn’t a contender for our short list, but it’s not far off: a little less sweetness and higher carbonation would*probably have tipped it over the edge.
*By The Horns are one of many breweries in the recent London boom that we haven’t had chance to get to know — just a half here, a half there, the odd bottle, and none of them particularly to our taste.
http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/horns_brett_saison.jpgThis beer poured orange-brown with gentle carbonation and so looked for all the world like a best bitter.*Its*complicated style descriptor — ‘saison-brett aged in Burgandy [sic] Oak’ — carried through into the aroma (Orval (http://boakandbailey.com/2015/05/100-words-describing-brettanomyces/) plus over-ripe plums plus a dash of chip-shop vinegar). ‘Is this one of those beers where it went wrong so*the brewery*barrel-aged it?’ we wondered. A complex multi-faceted sourness dominated the taste, too, bringing to mind pickled lemons. It was bracing and almost refreshing but, for us, just a bit too intense and odd, really. As it warmed up, it became more wine-like, rounder in the mouth and more blackcurranty. (Or was that just suggested by the label?)
Again, this is not a contender — it is ultimately too rough around the edges and*it is hard to see much evidence of the saison character after all the Frankenstein-ing it’s been through — but we’ll certainly drink the other bottle, perhaps with some food with enough poke to tame the beer’s spikiness.**Or maybe it would work as a sort of stock ale for blending with blander beers?
*
Celt are a Welsh brewery whose beers we don’t recall ever having come across before even though, a year or two back, they were being*coo-ed over by writers and bloggers and*collaborating furiously with other brewers.
http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/celt_saison.jpgHallstatt Deity poured amber-brown with (at last!) a really vigorous head of foam, and a slight haze. It is supposedly a saison with pomegranate but*actually tasted, to us, like a standard pale ale with a great big shot of grapefruit juice in it. The sourness was clean and sharp, but also a little tooth-stripping. Some leafy-green hop character made itself known in the dying dregs. We liked the beer’s tonic-like dryness and found it really quite striking and interesting. Which is, of course, code for the fact that we didn’t really*like it, but can see that others with a taste for the exotic and intense might.
So, it’s strike three: this is not a contender either, mostly because we can’t quite see the route you would take to get from something like Saison Dupont to this oddity.
*
It seems we’re groping our way closer to understanding what saison means in the UK: in most cases, it is apparently a catch-all for ‘weird shit’ — a way of suggesting the exotic, like a sign outside a 1970s Soho cinema promising ‘foreign films’. That our favourite of these three was Hop Kettle’s, the most straightforward attempt to brew in the Belgian style, is probably telling, too — we are probably after Dupont-alikes, it seems.
Saisons Pt 7: More Lemon, More Sour (http://boakandbailey.com/2015/05/saisons-pt-7-more-lemon-more-sour/) from Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog - Over-thinking beer, pubs and the meaning of craft since 2007 (http://boakandbailey.com)
More... (http://boakandbailey.com/2015/05/saisons-pt-7-more-lemon-more-sour/)
http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/saisons_pt7_hopkettle_horns_celt.jpgThis week, as part of our ongoing project (http://boakandbailey.com/2015/04/saison-season-is-open/), we tasted three UK-brewed saisons with no real connection other than that they’re from breweries we don’t really know well at all.
Hop Kettle Ginlemlii Thai Saison (330ml, 5.8% ABV, sent to us by @landells (https://twitter.com/landells))
By The Horns Vive La Brett Saison-Brett (330ml, 6.1%, £2.56 from Ales by Mail)
Celt Hallstatt Deity Farmhouse Fruit Saison (330ml, 6.6%, £1.98)
The Red Lion is a pub in Cricklade, Wiltshire, with a small brewery on site operating under the name Hop Kettle. It is a favourite of*Mark Landells who sent us three bottles*of their saison because he was eager to see it included in our taste-off. First impressions were very good: it wasn’t a weird colour, didn’t smell weird, and poured a perfectly clear gold. The carbonation was fairly low but we managed to coax a decent head from the bottle without disturbing any yeast.
http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/hop_kettle_saison.jpgThough the ingredients list doesn’t mention coriander or orange peel, the aroma*reminded us of Hoegaarden Witbier so, yes, cleverly done. The supposed Thai spicing (ginger, lemongrass, lime leaves) is thankfully restrained — a teasing*hint rather than fizzy pop flavouring. It edges towards sweet and has a syrupy, mouth-coating quality which brings to mind Belgian blonde ales or even Trappist tripels more than any saison we’ve tasted. In short, it’s a decent, clean beer with a good bit of character, and certainly a remarkable effort for a small pub brewery.*Overall, we concluded that it isn’t a contender for our short list, but it’s not far off: a little less sweetness and higher carbonation would*probably have tipped it over the edge.
*By The Horns are one of many breweries in the recent London boom that we haven’t had chance to get to know — just a half here, a half there, the odd bottle, and none of them particularly to our taste.
http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/horns_brett_saison.jpgThis beer poured orange-brown with gentle carbonation and so looked for all the world like a best bitter.*Its*complicated style descriptor — ‘saison-brett aged in Burgandy [sic] Oak’ — carried through into the aroma (Orval (http://boakandbailey.com/2015/05/100-words-describing-brettanomyces/) plus over-ripe plums plus a dash of chip-shop vinegar). ‘Is this one of those beers where it went wrong so*the brewery*barrel-aged it?’ we wondered. A complex multi-faceted sourness dominated the taste, too, bringing to mind pickled lemons. It was bracing and almost refreshing but, for us, just a bit too intense and odd, really. As it warmed up, it became more wine-like, rounder in the mouth and more blackcurranty. (Or was that just suggested by the label?)
Again, this is not a contender — it is ultimately too rough around the edges and*it is hard to see much evidence of the saison character after all the Frankenstein-ing it’s been through — but we’ll certainly drink the other bottle, perhaps with some food with enough poke to tame the beer’s spikiness.**Or maybe it would work as a sort of stock ale for blending with blander beers?
*
Celt are a Welsh brewery whose beers we don’t recall ever having come across before even though, a year or two back, they were being*coo-ed over by writers and bloggers and*collaborating furiously with other brewers.
http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/celt_saison.jpgHallstatt Deity poured amber-brown with (at last!) a really vigorous head of foam, and a slight haze. It is supposedly a saison with pomegranate but*actually tasted, to us, like a standard pale ale with a great big shot of grapefruit juice in it. The sourness was clean and sharp, but also a little tooth-stripping. Some leafy-green hop character made itself known in the dying dregs. We liked the beer’s tonic-like dryness and found it really quite striking and interesting. Which is, of course, code for the fact that we didn’t really*like it, but can see that others with a taste for the exotic and intense might.
So, it’s strike three: this is not a contender either, mostly because we can’t quite see the route you would take to get from something like Saison Dupont to this oddity.
*
It seems we’re groping our way closer to understanding what saison means in the UK: in most cases, it is apparently a catch-all for ‘weird shit’ — a way of suggesting the exotic, like a sign outside a 1970s Soho cinema promising ‘foreign films’. That our favourite of these three was Hop Kettle’s, the most straightforward attempt to brew in the Belgian style, is probably telling, too — we are probably after Dupont-alikes, it seems.
Saisons Pt 7: More Lemon, More Sour (http://boakandbailey.com/2015/05/saisons-pt-7-more-lemon-more-sour/) from Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog - Over-thinking beer, pubs and the meaning of craft since 2007 (http://boakandbailey.com)
More... (http://boakandbailey.com/2015/05/saisons-pt-7-more-lemon-more-sour/)