Electric Ladyland
Black Shirt Brewing Co.

 

i keep wanting to like these guys and i keep finding their beer to be so wildly hit or miss that i order it with trepidation now. this is a wood aged raspberry saison on tap at avanti, pouring a dense pinkish color at first with a nice head on it, but as it sits in my glass, i can literally watch it turn brown, like the fruit is getting oxidized and breaking down right before my eyes, after ten minutes its a murky brown unappealing color. aroma is good, probably the best feature of this, with lots of tangy and sweet fresh raspberry, they got that part down. it also has some nice cocoa nuance, red wine character from the time on wood, and a cool density that i sometimes like in my saison. the yeast is belgian and funky at the same time, short of fully wild but not uninteresting. the problem is that in the flavor the fruit tastes decaying, not fresh like it smells, and the yeast smells like a too warm french time with a slight infection from the wood, possibly unintentional wildness to it, but unflattering here, especially when it warms up. some sweetness from the grain and fruit, light cocoa and char, not bad, and i really do like all of the wood on it, it makes it unique, but this is just sloppy in every sense of the world. its heavy in feel too, more than it should be, and the beer overall gets worse with each sip and seems woefully amateur. seems weird they would have something this poor in quality on tap in avanti, who i think tries to present themselves as quality focused. another beer full of potential but not nearly well enough refined from these guys... i had a hard time finishing this...