8.4

Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5

750mL bottle drunk 12/14/23. Clear, bright blonde with a brassy-golden tint. Large, snow white head showing strong retention. Mostly saison and light lactic notes with just a speck of adjunct. Not even blindly identifiable as gin or cucumber, I don't think. Rather, it's lovely, mellowed, barrel-aged saison with plentiful Sacch notes outdoing the Brett and lacto character. Low oak/tannin, minimal hop. Just pepper, mineral, plaster and a hint of spice from barrel. Malty, with a round fruitiness. Tons of pepper, good dryness, though not bone dry. Lots of Sacch and here you actually do get the juicy cucumber and floral gin notes, though it's far from heavy and probably not identifiable clearly as such, drunk blind. It's highly, highly carbonated and as such needs to be swirled off and left to breathe, as it's too strong and disruptive at the baseline level immediately after opening the bottle. The balance here is impeccable. Certainly very malty, but not sweet. Barrel-aging has worked wonders and the beer is minimally tart, very fruity and complex. Wonderful, wonderful stuff.