Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
It has been a bit since I have mentioned Firestone Walker and Buellton but a new beer is coming out that changes that trend and it is a unique one, Saffron Saison a wild saison ale with (take a guees) saffron, sweet orange peel and Indian coriander. It is a Batch No 1 release.
My interest was piqued by the idea of a Saison that is headlined by melon. The use of Ogen melons in half of two melon saisons recently released by Cellador sent me to their tasting room. The other being a Chapo? melon version which was not on draft to compare side by side. I had no previous experience with either melon. There is a really nice light green melon taste here. Honeydew without the sweeter finish, more crisp. It has a nice tartness that takes it a bit further afield from Saison but as a Wild Ale is just right. Has a nice spritziness to it that accents the sour. As it warms, the grain starts to peek through to good effect as does a slight salt note.
Gourde Fumee. Bourbon barrel-aged sour with hot smoked Kabocha squash. Right off the bat is smoke. Then a sour hit follows that. Then the alcohol burn combines the two. Not getting squash notes and any bourbon is well hidden under the smoke which is probably closer to BBQ than campfire. As more sips are taken, I start to get cherry notes but that burn comes back. Maybe the palate is acclimating to the smoke because it recedes fairly quickly but it is still pretty spiky. I do wish the bourbon came through to add a needed layer to balance out the two strong flavors.
From those two paragraphs, you can probably easily tell which of the two that I preferred. It was not really close.
If you have neither had a fancy bottle from the Wood Cellar at Smog City Brewing or have had wild and chocolate then the new, Fancy Chocolate will knock both items off of your bucket list.
Here is what the Torrance brewery has to say about this beer, “this deeply nuanced Dark Wild Ale with Berries brings a complex presence of bakers chocolate and espresso with aromas of bright berry fruit and hints of toasty barrels eliciting the sense of enjoying a delicious bar of fruited dark chocolate.”
If we were to rank fruits best and often used in beers, apples probably would not make the cut. And certainly the aggressively tough Arkansas Black would be too hard to use in a beer. Well, two wild ale maestros disagree with me.
I would side with Jim and Chad and check out this new offering from Barrel Works.
The clock has struck 8 and Sierra Nevada and Russian River are releasing the 2020 version of Brux, a Wild Domesticated Ale. This is a treat to see this get the yearly release special treatment. If you have not had this before, this will be a fun taste experience.
If you think that alcohol laws could use nationwide reform, well the above beer collaboration gives a good example of what can happen when breweries are given just a little extra legal help.
TRVE and New Belgium have collaborated on Where I Live which “uses malts from Troubadour Maltings in Fort Collins to create the base beer, which was fermented on Norwegian Kveik yeast. The beer was blended with a foeder-aged dark sour, then further matured with TRVE’s mixed-culture in one of New Belgium’s French oak foeders.”
The hurdle was you could not transfer beer from one brewery to another without incurring a tax charge. The 2017 Brewery Act (which I remind you, needs renewal) removed that hurdle. Funnily enough for me, what struck me about this beer more than the law was this, ” Just before packaging, the beer is circulated over whole-flower lavender grown on the Western Slope of Colorado by Two Bears Farms.” Sounds like a fun beer.
Sierra Nevada has been pumping out the Hazy Little Thing and IPA’s a plenty but what caught my eye recently was the label above. Wild Ale aged in wine barrels? That is certain to go on the shopping list.
Crazy to read about Draai Laag in Beer Advocate and then literally days later, see a bottle of Relic on the shelves at Sunset Beer. So I took it as a sign and grabbed a bottle to review.
This “Wild by Design” beer is made with the Relic Strain, and we’ll let the website explain more…
“Long story short – we came into possession of a French Monastic cabinet dated from the 17th century and, naturally, set to work extracting a yeast strain from the layers of wax used to preserve it. Hops were added sparingly, allowing the uniquely earthy, musty and citrusy flavors of this ancient strain to shine.”
The Wild Ale pours a turbid orange. I expect nothing less from the East Coast. Aroma is tart for sure. Sweet tart meets barnyard is my initial reaction. Quite acidic on the stomach. Tasting some grapefruit pith. A bit of an oaky wood note fights through the tart. Not complex and not simplistic. Points inbetween to me.
I like it but I also think that I need to taste other beers to truly gauge this particular beer.
Refermented in the bottle with Brettanomyces bruxellensis, Brux will change and develop over time. Copper-colored, dry and complex, with slightly tart notes of green grass, pear, spice and lemon – this ale will progress in the bottle for many years.
That is part of the brewery description of the domesticated wild ale collaboration between Sierra Nevada and Russian River.
Back in July of 2012, I had these superlatives for the beer when I sampled it at the Surly Goat: “This is one tremendous beer. Pours a slightly hazy yellow. Barnyard funk greets the nose but does not overwhelm. The taste is sprightly with some funk and sour melding together. Some fruit notes tag along for the ride as well.”
But what do I think now that is has aged a bit. Can it possibly get better?
Short answer. No. Not that the orange color that replaced the hazy yellow is an issue. Nor is their a diminishment of barnyard funk. What has changed and not for the better in my view is that last bit of fruit has faded off into the sunset and for sunrise there is a bit of a band-aid note at the back end that is a bit gacky on the palate. And by gacky, I mean a flavor that erases the goodwill that came before and replaces it with a slightly rubber taste. There is a nice tartness here though and the first 85% of the beer is fine even though it doesn’t reach the heights of 2012.
The Verdict? Maybe this beer was in a trough. Some beers go through phases (like a teenager) where they are unlikeable. Would another year make this better? Or improve where it is? Won’t know now but that is the fun of experimenting with beer aging. The unknown.
