Sahati
The Ale Apothecary

 

 

Pours a rustic copper with a mild fog to the translucency. There is a finger or less of off-white foam formation, which bubbles away quickly. Aroma is minor spruce and fir with an cutting roar of lactic sourness. Dark fruit, grass, cellar stone, and mild melon dew for the rest of the nose, with the most emphasis on the first two notes. Flavor profile is mild spruce again, but it's a backdrop to the twangy sourness. Mild dark fruits, cellar stone, and grass help form the rest of flavor profile. Mouth feel is medium in thickness with a very still effervescence. Texture is driven by a very light silt at the back, but not much else. Overall, a pretty unique beer. It's plenty sour with just enough spruce to make it a little more intriguing.

Served in a 15.5oz Spieglelau tulip from a 375mL bottle. ABV: 9.62%. Bottled: June 27, 2019. Consumed/reviewed: October 9, 2022.

too much wine like than an ale very sour

Pours a dark amber from the bottle, slightly cloudy, foamy 1" head with light lacing. Nose is super expressive - pine and spruce needles, menthol, lemon peel and oil, orange, musk, deodorant, Bengay, Icy Hot. Taste is also very complex - sour Brett and lemon, peppery pine and spruce, light malt sweetness; a bit tacky; long finish, sour and musky. Mouthfeel is crisp and clean, no heaviness. Overall, this is an exceptional beer regardless of style with a great amount of depth and evolution.

I believe I owe this one to Sharpski. Corked 750 (dated June 8 2017, 9.06% ABV) poured into 14oz teku. Poured a beautiful, clean, clear, bright copper color with a half-inch of white head that quickly dissipated and left no lacing. Just gorgeous.

As soon as the cork popped free, a wonderfully delightful funk burst out.Sharp, bitey, and slightly Brett-like. The base had light, soft grains, supporting the funk, yeast, wood, and floral tones.

Similar on the tongue, with the addition of a notable sourness, especially at the back of the palate. The wild Bend yeastbugs still dominate, but that tang sure got your attention.

The body was light, crisp, smooth, and had a tart finish that was very, very dry, and then dried out even more after a few moments.

Drinkability was great, one of those rare beers where drinking the bottle alone was easy, no getting bored with this one.

Overall, a wonderful brew. An absolute must grab if you ever see it.

Tuesday, September 21, 2021 9:08 PM
12.7 ounce bottle poured to wine glass
Sight: amber liquid, appears clear, no foam, some lacing
Smell: Very Fragrant- woody
Taste: Very good, high sourness, low bitterness, some sweetness
Mouthfeel: Very good, lively carbonation, long follow through, good finish, aftertaste stays in the palate very long
Overall: Very good beer, ok to repeat not to look for

 

Hands down, this is the craziest beer I’ve ever had. Bar none and all that stuff. I think it tastes like Bigfoot after he showered. Yeah... My god is it foresty/piney, but not like a dank IPA - this one is straight liquid forest. Wow. Umm, what am I supposed to do now? I’m, like, lost in wonder. I dunno if I want the entire bottle, but I think the entire bottle wants me. So I’ll have at it. Damn, it is super clean... Ok, I’m just going to live in the moment like with that girl on Catalina Island in 2000.

Peace!

Bottle Date: 6/14/18
Palate Contaminants: other beer

Cloudy and medium brown. Good amount of fine off-white head, but little lacing. It just looks thick.

The scent seems to have every part of a tree, cedar specifically. Definitely the "needles" (or whatever you call them on a cedar tree) and definitely the sap. The wood seems to have a little bit of sharp (but not overly) acidic astringency. It's fair to say there's something between apple cider and apple vinegar. Points for coming off as fresh, too. Wild stuff.

The initial taste is definitely with the apple cider/vinegar. It's like it runs up to the border of overbearing, then stops. The cedar "needles" are next, although there's not much of any other part of the tree. (Some sips it actually hits me more as wood, but still there's only one component I can pick out.) Sneaky sweet.

Carbonation takes a bit of agitation to bring out, but it's foamy. Alcohol barely detectable, yet I feel it after a few minutes. Medium-heavy weight. Aftertaste is still mostly apple cider, but other fruits (sour cherry and pear specifically) do show up after the astringency abates.

 

Sweet, sour, and nice...

 

 

 

*Poured into a Teku glass from a 375mL bottle*

*Bottled on 6/27/19*

*Drank on 7/15/20*

This beer poured a cloudy amber color in my glass. The head, or lack thereof, was white and left a thin lacing around my glass. There really wasn't any head to speak of, which is pretty common for a lot of farmhouse ales.

On the nose, I generally got prominent notes of sourness, pine notes, and a bit of an apple like sweetness throughout. Upfront, I definitely got notes of funk in the front and notes of resin, pine, and honey in the back-end.

The taste was sour-forward as expected. The beer also brought a nice complexity to it, giving me prominent notes of pears, apples, resin, and oak upfront, with a bit of a wine undertones throughout. The apples and pear notes were more prominent in the middle and the beer finishes with a pronounced lemon sourness.

For a 10.5% ABV beer, this was crazy drinkable. I actually didn't get any notes of alcohol in this. With a low carbonation and light body, this was very drinkable and good. There was no bitterness to this, and no lingering aftertaste. This was probably the best farmhouse ale I've had up to this point.

Overall, I found this beer to have a nice complexity to it while also having a nice sour-forward taste without being completely overwhelming on the palate. The nice notes of pine, apples, pear, and honey in this beer without any bitter or alcoholic taste to it made this beer ridiculously easy to drink. Very nice, very good.

Acorn brown with a tiny khaki head that instantly fizzles out to a bubbly, noisy surface.

Smell is crabapple, red wine barrel, and an herbal potpourri mint-like yet resinous evergreen forest.

The medium round body is crisped up by an effervescence that immediately introduces tangy lemon-limeade accented in short order by spruce resin and even a sort of mint julep character that includes a touch of oak that dries to a semi-bitter, lightly toasty, charred finish. It even becomes a little smoky and hammy after introducing a bite of redskin peanuts to the palate.

A very unique brew that makes me wish I was camping in the redwoods right about now.

 

Poured from a bottle (25May2018) into a tumbler

L: very nice amber brown, medium head, light white lacing. Not much visible carbonation. Last glass incorporated some lees (am I using that right?), thick tannish head

S: very unique, herbal nose. Spicy, earthy, with a bit of sweetness from the honey. Almost medicinal, but not in a bad way

T: follows the nose, really interesting and unique herbal flavor, resiny character. Honestly hard to describe, but the spicy/herbal spruce flavor with the honey is (again) quite unique. A bit of red wine barrel as well, no abv to be found

F: medium body, medium/light carbonation

O: differentiated, flavorful, just unique (broken record) beer. Can’t think of anything I’ve had that’s similar, makes me think it’s the beer version of a very herb-forward gin

 

Bottled 6/27/2019

Deep amber to brown with little head and lacing. Some thin residual islands of foam along with a full off-white rim. cloudy with nebulas of yeast in suspension.

smells of oak and spruce for sure, cherry and some red wine vinegar in there

you can really pick up the spruce in an initial invigorating fresh zing, then mellows into red wine (cant specify what kind) cherry/walnut wood and orange zest.

feels medium in body and light in the afterburn, which is drying but still refreshing.

great beer, would love to see what age would do this one.

 

 

375ml bottle into a tulip. Bottled 7/11/19, so 9 months old

Pours into the glass like a beautiful amber/copper whiskey. Small off white head dissipates to a thin ring. No lacing, but light carbonation can be detected.

Sour aroma, very mild vinegar, but still pleasant.

Woody, sour, a little earthy and a wine touch. Way smoother than most sours. The only thing I'm not getting is any spruce

Mouth around medium, finish sour with a pleasing warm throughout the throat and chest, the only indication of the 9.26abv.

Overall, you can taste the quality and thought that went into this beer. Not sure what happened to to the spruce, but a very enjoyable drink anyway.

 

Very interesting beer, my first foray into this style. Bottled date 6/27/19. Pours a fairly rusty color, just a little off-white cap of head and minimal spotty lacing. Smells of faint pine, wood, some tart fruit, vanilla, yeast of some sort. Tastes similarly, good balance but quite tart and a little sour. Reminded me a little of a wild ale. Smooth clean crisp mouthfeel, a little puckering, good carbonation. Very interesting and I’ll have to try more from this style.

A: The beer is clear dark yellowish amber in color and has a slight amount of visible carbonation. It poured with a narrow collar of white bubbles around the edge of the glass and some lacing on the surface. As the remainder of the bottle pours out, the beer becomes a little browner and cloudier.
S: Light aromas of sourness are present in the nose along with strong notes of spruce.
T: The taste starts out with initial flavors of sourness and then has a mix of sourness and spruce branches, the latter of which linger into the finish.
M: It feels medium-bodied and very tart on the palate with a moderate amount of carbonation.
O: I really enjoyed the combination of sourness and spruce in this beer.

Note: Bottled July 11, 2019 (9.26% abv)

Serving type: bottle

Look: Cloudy dark amber. One finger of foamy white head with poor retention.

Smell: Sour and funky, with a vague spruce note.

Taste: Very sour with a distinct "band-aid" note common to wild ales, with lemon juice and citrus oil flavors. Very mild pine note.

Mouthfeel: Thin and decently carbonated.

Overall: I'm not sure what to think of this. The sourness might need a tone down to let other flavors come forward.

 

An awesome gift from Phil! Poured from fridge temp. Not much head on an aggressive pour. Nose is lemon, orange, nectarines, sour funk, honey, vanilla, and a bit of cinnamon spice. Really attractive nose that keeps me coming back for another sniff. Taste is insanely good. A quick sour impact on first taste, with a nice bitterness on the back end. A good amount of citrus peel, orange creamsicle, wheat, and barnyard funk. The grapes from the wine barrels also comes through. This is an outstanding beer and glad I got to try it.

 

 

 

 

375 ml. bottle.
Brewed 7.1.2017.
Bottled 11.8.2018.
852 bottles.
9.24% abv.
Moderate to vigorous pour yields a 1/2 inch off white head over a reddish- orange body with scant lacing. Wonderfully complex nose of spruce, whole ground mustard, herbed vinegar, citrus, and a bit of funk and forest. Akin to a nice hike in spruce woods. Taste tries to mirror the ever-evolving nose, but doesn't quite make it. What it makes is absolute deliciousness. Taste is lemon tartness, pine, and spruce with supporting roles of wet leaves and wet spruce needles. Wow, I need another bottle as it would probably evolve even more. Nice feel and overall, a beer as unique and delicious as, as...well, I don't know; like nothing I've ever had before. Find this beer and savor it! Cheers!!!

Appearance - The beer poured a deep orange color with a white head.

Smell - The nose was like green chai tea with obvious spicy notes.

Taste - At the front, I detected huge blood orange, pine, gin, and spices. The sweetness of honey was faint, but standing up to the other elements is tough. Nothing about the taste fades, but it does taste better as it warmed.

Mouthfeel - This is not your average ale. There was some serious body here.

Overall - The beer is expensive, which is my only gripe. Otherwise, this is a peak form sahati.

 

Beer #4 from AA and I have loved them all, do this officially make me a fanboy? I just love the creativity and quality, just take this sahti for example, great herbal, grassy and pine elements in the base of the taste, but then huge bursting acidic and sour lime, lemon, passion fruit, melon, and orange creamsicle. There are so other flavors floating around like honey, rye, funk, beet, wild yeast and wood as well. Smell is spruce pine needles, lime, honey, rye, funk, and wood. Funk felt most in feel, with lingering acidity and sourness. Pretty beer with the lacing and orange glow! Best sahti I have ever had hands down!