7.1

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7

Saison by a relatively young (yet locally established) microbrewery in Herstal, less than five miles west of Liège; bottle bought online somewhere, but I cannot remember exactly where. Thick and frothy, egg-white, foamy and large-bubbled yet stable, cobweb-lacing, 'Belgian' head over an initially clear, pale yellow blonde beer with lively visible sparkling. Aroma of apple peel, dusty old cloth, straw bales, dried green apple peel, raw black radish, cooked parsnip, crumbling clay (the rye?), ground limestone, dry hay, old herbarium, old coriander seed, stale armpit sweat, gypsum, old 'herbes de Provençe'. Spritzy onset with lively yet not overly 'painful' carbonation - actually very well fit for the intended style, with refreshing minerally effects (limestone, calcium) under a basic estery fruitiness reminiscent of dried apricot, persimmon and pear, sweetish with a sourish edge, which persists through a white-bready, dry-cereally pale maltiness, rounded and quite 'full' for a saison. An apple-like effect accompanies this malty character while a thin trace of residual sugars lingers, but even though a certain background sweetness can be felt, it does not overpower the minerality and herbaceousness that dominate this beer - with a floral effect playing an important role retronasally (withered clover), while at the same time, the hops fail to provide the drying bitterness much needed in a saison. The sourish effect lingers, even a bit gooseberry-like, which I believe is historically more or less correct, but 'saison' is of course a term which - after it went global thanks to the craft beer movement - is now a very 'commercial' one in Belgium, used often inappropriately for ordinary blondes; in this particular case, I am inclined to regard it as a brewing flaw (infection) and being unintentional. The fruitiness is stronger in this sour-sweetish finish (apple, nectarine, yellow plum) than in the onset, also because of something suddenly yet very briefly orange-like; nevertheless I have the impression that some of it results from onsetting bacterial activity. Something dusty and starch-like lingers (albeit not too strongly so) and I am left with the impression that sour, sweet and (very mild) bitter have never really been tied together here in the correct, balanced way; instead, this beer makes a somewhat messy impression, and dramatically lacks the dryness, crispness and spicy hop bitterness I expect from a saison. Feels more like the umpteenth Belgian blonde posing as a saison, but no doubt the intentions here are genuine, and with less residual sugars, more hops and a somewhat 'cleaner' way of brewing, this may be tuned up to a very decent saison after all - if Dupont, Blaugies or Vapeur's Saison de Pipaix are to be seen as the standards, that is (which is historically debatable but at least defensible in this day and age).