Oh Face Saison Provisional
Trinity Brewing Company

I actually poured this beer out cause it was NASTY. I never ever do that especially at $9.99 a beer. I'm hoping I got an anomaly. It tasted like a sour something or other. Idk. I really think I got a fluke.

"With a hodge-podge here and a kitten-caboodle there, Ole McTrinity had an ale, E-I-E-I-O." Or, that's what the hazy golden ale and teeming effervescence would have you believe. Rustic grains of pelt, oats, rye and wheat come together with pumpkin, lavender and spices for a unique combination of ingedients that actually make sense in taste.

Oh Face will have you making that face when reading the ingredients, but the beer's opening perfume is one of musty hay, pepper, citrus, flora candy, and an all around dusty funk. Wafer thin sweetness settles on the early palate with hints of sourdough, thin honey and biscuit.

And the turbulence of carbonation breaks apart the sweetness and much of the malty support and allows the ale to drift into a sparkling wine refreshment. Lemon, under ripened orange, grape, pear, apple and melon steer from a juicy center an toward a dehydrated fruit mustiness. Light creaminess from the gourde allows for a brief rebuttal from a scant sourness and an alarming spicy pep.

Light in body, the beer's dry and spicy finish once again involves soft echoes of sourdough, light barnyard funk and an overall impression of dusty cellars and worn attic woods.

 

 

375ml bottle, @6.5% ABV - lots o' stuff going on in this one, and that's just from parsing the hard to read label! Also, great name!

This beer pours a hazy, bright medium golden yellow colour, with two fingers of puffy, and mostly just fizzy dirty white head, which leaves pretty much nil in terms of lace anywhere near the glass as it quickly sinks away.

It smells of musty Brett funk, very floral lavender, earthy gourd flesh, gritty and grainy mixed malt, tart lemon peel, and a faint and generically vinous woodiness. The taste is grainy and bready malt, a still heady and estery dark floral thing, sweet pumpkin puree, some edgy pepper and coriander-like spice, a lessened sour funkiness, more zingy citrus notes, and a minor sense of red wine oakiness.

The carbonation is adequate in its zesty and palate-poking frothiness, the body a decent middleweight, and sort of smooth, as those blended grains seem to have a placating effect on all the more testy players. It finishes off-dry, and nicely tart and fruity.

Overall, the mishmash of ingredients work well enough to provide a tasty version of the style - if you're looking for a pumpkin brew, move on, even though it represents itself here as charmingly as any other element. Easy to drink (a bit surprisingly), and yet I'm glad my sample came in a relatively smaller serving size.

2013, drank 2016. Aged exceptionally; pumpkin still on the nose and lavender still in the flavor. Light but prevalent carbonation, lovely lemon citrus on the nose. Extremely cloudy yellow color. The brett is balanced perfectly with spice, lemon and musty flavors. Surprisingly clean mouthfeel. This is an exceptional wild ale and is tasting great this year.

 

 

 

A: The beer is slightly hazy yellow in color and has a light amount of visible carbonation. It poured with a quarter finger high white head that quickly settled down, leaving a thin layer of bubbles covering the surface and a collar around the edge of the glass.
S: Light to moderate aromas of Brettanomyces are present in the nose, which stand out in front of notes of lavender.
T: The taste has flavors of pumpkin flesh and lavender along with notes of sourness and funk from the Brett.
M: It feels on the higher side of being light- to medium-bodied on the palate and has a moderate amount of carbonation.
O: This saison isn't as dry and spicy compared to other beers in the style, but is rather complex and has some interesting aromas and flavors.

Serving type: bottle