Bottle bought at Kevin Devos’ beer shop near Antwerp. Tightly membranous lacing, off-white, stable, medium thick head showing some gaps minutes after pouring but retaining very well, over a more or less clear ’old gold’-coloured beer with slightly khaki tinge. Expressive, sweet and, frankly, fascinating but very un-saison-like aroma of canned peach slices, melting powder sugar, marmelade, lots of pear, honey and even a ton of mead, fresh camomile flowers, overripe pineapple, pancakes, marzipan, white bread dough, subtler hints of raw cauliflower (not DMS), vanilla ice cream, mangosteen flesh, chalk and old orange juice. Crisp, fruity onset, pear- and pineapple-like esteriness but low in banana isoamylacetate, green plum-like sourishness surrounding it and bringing perfect balance, fizzy and somewhat harsh carbonation, minerally and numbing at first, too much so even for this quenching-intended style, souring too much and distracting from the actual flavours; sufficiently ’filling’ mouthfeel with a very, very subtle metallic note somewhere. Cereally, very lightly bready pale malt sweetishness ensues with slightly phenolic side notes, leading to a refreshing finish of ongoing juicy malts superseded by floral, slightly peppery and even somewhat citrus peel-like hop bitterness which dries the tail to a sufficient extent; malt and ’fruity ester’ juiciness underlie this and the hop bitterness, in all, remains fairly limited and soft even for a saison. Alcohol remains as good as perfectly hidden. Weird little beer, this, aspiring to become a true saison one day I reckon, but missing the point there: I suspect adding the fancy farmhouse word ’saison’ to your label is an attempt at drawing commercial attention even within Belgium, but this is as much a saison as Rochefort 10 is a barley wine: only qualifying if you ignore the specific technical requirements of the style and want to capture its ’spirit’ in an abstract way. This saison spirit has not really been captured here in my opinion, this beer lacks the quenching dryness, elegantly rural character and subtly ’earthy’ and floral aspects I tend to associate with the style, leaving us with the conclusion that this is a typical Belgian blonde, aimed at the sweet-toothed larger audience. In that respect, however, this does stand out a bit, because of its unexpected ripe peach-, orange- and pineapple-like aromatic qualities, suggesting more sweetness in the mouth than is actually the case. In more than one respect, this is a beer that will put you on a wrong track, but in a clever kind of way. Just do not expect a traditional saison.

Pours rather clear yellowblonde. OK white head. Smell is weak, very mild bitterness. Taste is rather intense bitter, dry, yeastprofile. No aromatic features at all ( even though I really hoped for them ) OK in general, just very different to my expectations.

Bottle. Pours clear blonde. Big foam and rather much visible carbonation. Smell is dry, fresh bitter touch. Taste is sharp, bit bitter. Most of the taste is lost due to extreme overcarbonation. a mild citrussy touch, some yeastyness. mild bitter finish.

Pours warm blonde, small white head. Smell is bit metallic. Taste is a bit smokey, metallic, campfire-like smoke, but very mildly, with a Weird sweetness in the back.

Pours unclear blonde. Not much head. Smell is Sharp, thick intense grains. Taste is Sharp , full , sweetness, Honey . rather high carbo. Ok.

Pours caramelly Brown, small white head. Smell is sweet. Yeasty. Taste is Sharp, rather bitter. Coffee , malty, some caramel, bit sweet in the back.

The first one from this quiet micro brewery, which apparently has been in existence since 2012 and claims to brew only at their own premises. Bottle from Frui Vita in Hemiksem. Medium thick, moussy, off-white head breaking in the middle but leaving a thin veil of foam on top of a translucently copper coloured beer with mahogany hue, almost clear at first with persistent but ’fine’ sparkling. Aroma of caramel, candied fig, red cabbage with brown sugar (vague DMS?), coriander seed, liquorish candy, very strong phenols (nail polish or freshly varnished furniture), calvados, clear and somewhat disturbing FFF (freshly fermented farmland - in other words, ’fresh’ manure), dried thyme, baked banana, hazelnut oil, stock cube, aniseed, candied cherry, nutmeg, heavily sugared tea. Fruity onset of fig, pear, overripe elderberries, banana and passion fruit, sweetish and sourish but more of the latter, tingling carbonation and even a bit overcarbonated even for the style, adding minerally impressions; the fruity esters continue over a slick, supple maltiness, very caramelly with nutty and toasted accents, bittersweet and actually not that unpleasant, but in the finish the phenols retronasally cross the ’flavour border’ again, bringing things out of balance as expected when I sniffed the beer; a deep ’nuttiness’ continues along with the esters and phenols and some herbal hop bitterness leaving a spicy ’dryness’, further accentuated by badly hidden alcohol, becoming somewhat astringent and tiresome eventually, and leaving a light wryness on the root of the tongue, (fortunately?) more or less countered by lingering candi sugar sweetness. Aroma teems with off-flavours, flavour lacks balance and finesse, alcohol is badly hidden and there is no trace of inspiration or originality: I heard their other recipes (unsurprisingly including a tripel and a strong ’ambrée’) are already being distributed (very) locally, but I would recommend these undoubtedly enthusiastic people to finetune this one first before unleashing more unbalanced, almost amateurish brews onto their regional market.