So for the Behemoth Brewing Company and brewed at The Twisted Hop clearly in the in the style that is a Saison, and this happens out of Auckland, somewhere.
This is a 500ml bottle of a beer with an ABV of 8.0%, making it around 3.15 Standard Drinks, witch would make it around 320 calories in the bottle
Bottle 219 of 300 (hand written!) I feel special. (pictures below)
Some may say this beer is sacrilegious to the beer purity gods. It is big on alcohol but finishes quite dry. This farmhouse style Saison Ale is scattered with peppercorns, bitter orange peel and a heavenly dose of Motueka hops.
I'm not convinced though that there are just 300 bottles, call me sceptical, it might be they are made in 150 litre batch lots. Probably. Still I feel like I got something a bit special.
Note to self -- sediment in bottle
Second note to self -- see first note :-)
There is no surprises in the aroma, it's a little bit yeasty, but it's only a little bit. I got in some weird aroma of apricots as a second aroma. I kid you not.
Looks fantastic in the glass, dark orange slightly cloudy and bit rich, nice small head that looks ok but isn't perhaps going to hang around.Aroma is still that of apricots, who knows where I get that from, I usually just make stuff up, but in this case, not.
It's rich and sweet and caramel and bracingly good with a long drink and a decent finish that errs towards a bit sour.
Hashtag love, makes funny thing with both hands. #Love
Gosh.
The alcohol is there and being present at the front of this, which detracts slightly from the otherwise amazeballs beers that this totes is.
If I could find Saison beer like this more regularly I'd drink it over many others. I think it might be a style that is fraught with difficult and a path that you could easily wander way from, using all of my none of the expertise in brewing to decide that.
I feel all sheepish and a bit daft though, I like Belgium style beers, and I had a golden ale last up, and now this, and now I can't decide which I like more, or why they are clearly different because they clearly are. I'm being a bit disingenuous though they are different for other reasons.
The attraction in this though for me, the musty malt, the caramel, the sour and the fullness of the beer. This style seems to have started life as house beer, something that got thrown together for the end of harvest party for the workers. I like this, I like all the flavours and in the alcohol astringent tang you get.
It does however fail on the fullness of the body and the depth of the beer. But I write that with tears in my eyes as this is almost the perfect beer.
It might be that I had a great lead in with the Bellerose Bière Blonde Extra, and if that's the case you should go that route too, otherwise either of these will give you a bit of what you need.
The pdubyah-o-meter rates this as 10 a of its things from the thing. I'm a little in awe of this, I think I was taken by the handwritten label, clearly sweatshop and random, I might soak it off and put it on Trademe (the NZ equivalent of Amazon or EBay), if I could stop the ink running. It's really easy drinking and just a bit lovely and warm and I've been asked by MrsPdubyah why I'm sighing so much.
After much hand-wringing on marking this 9 I gave it the 10. I was going to mark it a 9, and I sat and mulled it over, listened to the musics a bit, and drank 1/2 of the tiny about remaining. Generally in the hour it takes to drink a beer I read the reviews in a few places, and I'm happy to mark beers down if they're rated highly and I don't agree the reviews, as I have done in the past, however, I hope I'm not a fanboi, and when it comes to 'blind' tasting and decisions you get the longest posts and the most of the stream of consciousness.
The double dip review
1.Am I enjoying it? Kidding, I'd thumb wrestle you for the biggest half
2.Would I have another? If I won the thumb wrestling I'd insist on yours
3.Would I share with a friend on a porch and set the world to rights? Oath yes. Clearly the label deserves a t-shirt on it's own. Tongue in cheek, white anglo-american Jebus would love this. But he's third in line after you and me or 4th or 5th I can't figure it out.
Taken from a band called "The Horrors" this their album 'Luminous' which I've been listening to with this beer as background, this track - "So Now You Know".
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr7TAfOkEVc&w=560&h=315]
A little bit pop, a bit of indie and a lot of over-production. This is a nice album that although I had on the background made me stop and listen to it, clearly a clever band with clever people pushing the buttons and twanging the thing. I'l be going again on this album in the near future.
SAISON
Fruity esters dominate the aroma. Clarity is good with a large foamy head on top. The addition of several spices and herbs create a complex fruity or citrusy flavor. Light to medium bodied with very high carbonation. Alcohol level is medium to high.
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