4th Anniversary
Base Camp Brewing Company

 

750ml corked bottle, cork pops itself while being uncaged. This must be about a year and a half old now, sitting in MA store storage before I bought it today. Label says barrel aged imperial saison, fermented with saison yeasts, brett, lactobacillus. Aged in wine barrels for 7 months with Willamette Valley pinot noir grapes added in the last month. Pours a copper red golden translucent with a big head that settles to not much. Smell is winey and oakey. Taste is a fizzy mixture of saison, oak, and wine. A trace of baking soda is in there somehow. An odd fizzy mixture but not bad. Feel is ok with sparkling carbonation and alcohol burn. Overall, the taste takes some unfortunate turns but you might want to try it.

Poured from a bomber into a tulip

Pours a dull copper and cloudy with little head (expected with the ABV) but decent lacing.

The aromas are heavy on the fruity esters, and lacking on the funk. Grapes, pear, and barrel, but not funk.

The flavor is similarly skewed heavily sweet for the style. Caramel/diacetyl mixed with esters with little or no sour, funk, or bitter to be found. People talk about a brew having a solid malt "backbone." This brew is all malt, which is all wrong for the style.


The mouthfeel has much going for it, with plenty of effervescence and lift, but it's just too sticky for the style again.

This looks and smells like a saison, but that's where the expectations end. At the end of the day, flavor matters. This one is way too sweet.

 

Decent creamy head, light lacing, semi clear semi hazy golden color orange hue

Nose big sweet malt, amber with caramel, big candied raisin, brown sugar, Belgian esters and phenol spices, apple pear, creamy sour lacto funk, big buttery oak and wine barrel vinous

Taste mild sweet malt, caramel, big fruit esters apple pear white raisin, brown sugar notes, into big wine barrel, vinous, musty, little buttery oak, mild phenolic spices, little candy apple brandy, tart creamy lacto funk but light, souring Brett, mild flemmy acidic finish

Mouth is med bod, little warming booze, fluffy carb, mild acidity

Overall really interesting, great barrel, nice funk, ok malt but a bit sweet sticky.

this is an amazing beer, and far far more inventive and well executed than anything i had when i visited this brewery in 2016, an enormous step forward for them, at least among my limited smattering of their ales. a darker colored, super strong saison here, with some wild and souring cultures, red wine barrels, and pinot grapes. its insanely complex, and has a progressive nature to it. starts with a ton of moderately sweet cereal malts, wheaty but also some crystal types, some sugar spike, the booze, and some nice tannic oak. then the yeast, which is both really funky (awesome in conjunction with the fruit), and quite sour and acidic (which rules as a counterpoint to the residual malt sweetness). last are the grapes added and the wine notes from the barrel ageing, which do not turn this into a fruit beer at all, but rather compliment the grain and the yeast in a unique way. i like the richer malt base, which normally i avoid in saison, i like them dry and wheaty and pale most of the time, but here, in the context of the barrel, the funk, and the high test abv, it makes great sense. nice bigger mouthfeel too, but plenty of carbonation, and increasing sourness all the way until the end. i havent had much beer like this, its not a classic saison in the base by any means, darker and bigger and all, but it seems the perfect platform for the other factors at work. im sure this one will age well, but dont feel like thats a necessity, it tastes fantastic at the moment. huge thanks to my friend for bringing this one over! definitely gives me a new appreciation for base camp!

Funky, wheat, grassy hop notes, slight spice, oak, venous character. No alcohol coming through. Awesome saison.