Saison
Niagara Oast House Brewers

750 ml cork and cage bottle served chilled into a pint glass. A $12 purchase from the local LCBO.

Appearance - pale golden color, great clarity and a torrent of bubbles and visible carbonation. Massive three plus fingers of long lasting white head, and plenty of sticky lacing.

Smell - subtle bit of peaches and apricots, with some grassy notes and a hint of a oaken barrel and vinous aroma.

Taste - quite fruity with candi sugar, a dry powdery sweet honey flavor and then some flowery and perfumery bits.

Mouthfeel - medium bodied, lots of carbonation, fairly dry, but just a little more juicy than most.

Overall - a pretty darn good albeit pricey saison. Elements of a triple her with the sweetness and candidate sugar influences, but has the dryness and finish of a common Belgian style. Worth a try.

Pours a misty pale orange with a generous craggy head. Aroma: classic saison following the pattern of Saison Dupont - less acid in the mouth: clove, pear, honeyish. Fullish mouth a little heavy for the style.

 

 

 

 

To me, the authority on this style (of the beers that I have tried) is Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale, by Boulevard Brewing Co. Comparing this to that, leaves gaps.
This one's nose already indicates that something is off, giving more of a champagne aroma, as opposed to a citrus-herb-hop-yeast combo one would be looking for. Then there is the fizzy head and body, along with the weak, watery taste.
This is an attempt, nothing else. It's drinkable, although the fizz makes it uncomfortable, A true saison should caress your throat as it glides down, not burn it.
Would probably not buy it (I received this one as a gift), but would consume if offered.

 

 

 

Poured from a caged & corked 750ml bottle into a tulip glass.

A: The beer is a bright gold color with a large off-white head that fades quickly and leaves a thick but spotty lace on the glass.

S: The aroma contains Belgian yeast, bananas, citrus, caramelized malts, some spice and some hops.

T: The taste starts out bready with flavors of Belgian yeast, wheat and a hearty but not too heavy malt character. Then some sweetness comes in from flavors of citrus, bananas, caramel and spices. There’s also a touch of tartness in the background. The hops presence is mild but complementary and brings a good balance. The after-taste is slightly bready and slightly sweet.

M: Smooth and very crisp, medium body, medium carbonation, finish is clean.

O: Tasty, goes down easily, not too filling, good kick, very good representation of style, this is a solid Saison to drink for a long time.

Tried this at the brewery on a recent trip. This was my favorite offering from Oast that day, and maybe that's because it was super fresh. It pours a hazy golden color with good head. The flavor is great, just what I would usually be looking for in a saison. Very grassy, earthy, and herbal with notes of banana and coriander. It was a refreshing, great-tasting hot summer day beer. Great job Oast!

 

Great every day brew. I've only had it on tap. At first taste, it seems ordinary, but it seems to "stick" to my palate, in a good way. And it just screams for more and more. Makes a great session pint.

I've had a 750 ml bottle of this sitting in my cellar for awhile ever since my wife and I visited the brewery when we went to Niagra On The Lake, Ontario about a year and 8 months ago now. This bottle started aging on 1/29/14, so it is just over 2 years old now. POP! goes the cork when I opened this bottle. Poured into one of my tulip glasses, this beer pours a clear, light golden color with lots of streams of little bubbles continuously rising towards the beer's surface. Has a huge fluffy white head that is about 2 inches thick when first poured with excellent retention and excellent lacing. One of the most impressive heads I've seen on any beer in quite a long time indeed. Has quite a complex yeasty aroma along with some bready malts and herbal spices of coriander and clove. The taste is pretty much the same, with a nice, sweet, yeasty flavor with Belgian notes of candy sugars, a bit of barnyard must with a bit of grassy, hay like dryness that is followed by cereal and bread like malts that give way to a bit of apple, lemon zest and a hint of banana. All this is rounded out with the aforementioned coriander and clove herbal spice notes. No discernible hop presence here at all. A very complex and well rounded flavor profile indeed, yet so simple in some ways. Has a crisp, frothy, medium to full bodied mouthfeel with fairly high carbonation. Easy to drink in the way a well crafted beer ought to be. I really enjoyed this one and I hope I get the chance to drink it again.

Eric

 

750ml bottle into snifter. 7% abv. began aging on feb 25 2015, consumed dec 15 2015

a: half-opaque pale yellow with bubbly white head. TONS of yeast sediment at the bottom of the bottle, kinda gross

s: bartlett pear, apricot, peach, clove, slight lemon. a bit of wheaty malt on the back end

t: the aforementioned fruits are perceived at the beginning, but they get obliterated by the strong bitterness in the mid-palate. on the finish is that same bitterness with some surviving lemony notes and straw-like, wheaty, hay malt flavours

m: medium-minus feel. prickly, bubbly, a-bit-high carbonation. bone-dry finish

o: a really enjoyable not-so-yeasty saison. i dig the fruit profile and the dryness