The Lamb
Fremont Brewing Company

Bottle at share. Pale golden pour, small airy head. Sour, yeasty, funky aroma and taste. Small amounts of the wine barrel come through, ading some fruity notes.

Bottle poured into a snifter

A: Pours slightly hazy golden amber with a frothy off white head that settles to a thin layer and

S: Mildly tart, fruity, light funk, a touch of oak, and faint peppery spice.

T: Pleasantly tart, classic Brett funk, floral, fruity, white grapes, peach, apricot, and kiwi, peppery spice, and a touch of oak.

M: Medium body, moderately lively carbonation.

O: Not usually a saison or a Brett guy, but I rather enjoyed this.

This Lamb is good. Not
woolly, but soft, tart, fruity
oak in harmony.

Fremont isn't yet known for beers of this kind, but I believe, based on this example, they soon will be.

 

 

2017-01-02
750ml corked/caged bottle served in a pair of large snifters.

Pours hazy pale amber with a smallish head and very fine carbonation. Smell is tart and funky. Lemons, some kind of fresh herb, smells a bit like sweet tart.

Taste is much bitterer than I expected, and less tart. Not overwhelmingly bitter. Bitterness comes across a bit like fruit skins. It has some kind of apricot sweet/tartness going on.

Mouthfeel is medium to thick, overall nice and surprisingly refreshing beer.

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2019-01-12
2016 bottle has been sitting around in my liquor cabinet for a long time.

Aroma follows my description above. Bitterness seems to have toned down significantly, comes across kind of woody. Mild tartness, actually a bit sweet.

Really lovely, if you ask me.

2016 batch cracked 12/24/16

Crisp golden body capped with a solid finger+ of white foam. Decent retention and great lacing.

Nose starts off with tart apple and white oak. Crisp and tart it's just what I was in the mood for right now.

Flavour launches more into the funky angle of things. There is a definite wooden element that is clearly from the oak but almost edges over into memories of splitting wide grain pine for crappy firewood. There's also more lateral movement withing the funky edges that creates a more muddled barnyard funk (side note: that sounds like a solid band name). This lingers in the middle of the palate so even though the finish tends more towards the white grapes they are still more of an afterthought.
Not quite as crisp and truly tart as I had pining for (see what I did there? heh) and tending more towards the deep coniferous sap and barnyard as opposed to the bright green apple. Would some of the heavy wood fade with age or would it just cause the brett to go that much more wild? Sounds like an experiment to be formulated!! Still pretty enjoyable, and yet more cause to be glad to have these guys in the neighbourhood!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the 2016 version, recently picked up at Arch Bridge

The beer pours a bright gold color with good head retention and lacing. On the nose, this just smells great. There's a huge aroma of wine, vanilla, light clove and a hint of citrus. The flavor profile replicates the nose fairly closely, and while the beer smells as if it will be fairly sour, it really isn't (just a touch of sour in this beer). There's a lot going on in this beer otherwise, but the flavor profile is dominated by honey, light clove, vanilla and the wine flavor. The acidity is really bright in this beer, and so you feel as if the flavor almost explodes on the palate. The finish is almost pretty clean and dry in this well crafted beer, and this is one of those beers that every time you take a sip, you can't wait to take another. Alcohol is well integrated into the flavor profile, but then the abv. is only 6.5% anyway, so that's no surprise.

There are a lot of barrel aged saison and farm house ales that are nothing spectacular and really not worth the price (price for a 750 ML bottle was $20 at Arch Bridge), but this one is. I would happily buy this one again, if Fremont would just make more of it. Not sure how likely that is, but regardless, this is pretty terrific.

 

2016 Batch, 750ml Batch poured into two 16 oz tulips.

A — Pours a nice orange color with great clarity and a nice off-white colored head that sits on top and manages to leave some spots of lacing.

S — Smell is sharp with notes of white oak barrels and funky Brett barnyard character. A bit of white wine and grape juice, but very sharp.

T — Mellow notes of white grapes and green apples lead way to a sharply dry Brett character with notes of barnyard and tannins. A lot of barrel character as well which is quite dry and slightly sour.

M — Medium bodied, bone dry, slightly acetic.

O — Good overall, but not quite what I expected. Seems as though it spent a bit too much time in barrels and is dominated by them as a result.