Very, very bad. And believe me, I don't aim to flame a brewer or their product, but if you're gonna offer a wax-top 750mL anniversary stout and charge a premium price for it, you've got to have a better beer than Soul Keeper. Trouble starts with opening the bottle; the white wax makes the massive rust from the cap readily apparent. Beer follows suit; metallic cherry/currant off flavors undercut any deep charred roasted barley notes, while the sweet chocolate and coconut husk are masked by an over-oaked bitterness and all-encompassing boozy heat. Cloyingly sweet on the back end, with chocolate liqueur warmth negating any subtle coconut. Pours a dark brown-black with a beige head and an unexpected oily film on top of the pint. Way, way too harsh for a sub-10% brew. Never a good sign when the guy who received a bottle for his birthday drain-pours it.

Way, way too sweet for a saison, with a deep honey vein overpowering the subtleties that make farmhouse ales so great. Sticky sweet malt notes backed up by toasted biscuit are too heavy for the style, leading to an almost peanut butter heft on the back end. Kind of the antithesis of a saison, to be honest. Rough stuff.

On tap at the brewery. Looks like shit, just a muddy brown, no head. Nose has tamarind, coffee cherries, raisins, brown sugar, malt. Flavor is odd, jalapeno, blueberry, brown sugar, tamarind. A straight up miss.