Provisions And Traditions Volume 4 - Dark Rye Saison
Great Raft Brewing

Likely truer to traditional southern Belgium farmhouse ale than that of the imagination within craft beer brewers, Great Raft's giving, limited farmhouse ale by giving its imbibers a heavy taste of pumpernickel rye bread, dark fruit and complementary spice.

Dark brown and with a rusty hue, the hazy and slightly visual dense ale builds a creamy, sandy lather. Its scent is redolent with caraway spice and its more common housing of pumpernickle bread. Pickling spice, fennel and peppercorn round the scent while a robust fig-like fruitiness swirls underneath. Light with sorghum, honey and dough, a toasty flavor sculpts the palate's first impressions of malt.

As the ale simmers on the middle palate, its fruit flavor intensifies into a fruitcake medley of raison, date, light prune and dark berry. Its spices counter with a slight red wine tendency, spicy peppercorn, caraway, light licorice and allspice. Creamy and toasty, the malt remnants of nuttiness, bread crust and dry toffy precede a winey twang and a moderate measure of dryness.

Medium full in body, the beer's somewhat caky body gives the robust taste a bit more heft and a lingering creaminess that pulls away from the common mouthfeel of standard saison. But its pumpernickle rye character sells itself extremely well in all its rusticity, rugged and raw graininess that's exactly how the Belgian farmhands would have it.

 

A: Poured into a Duvel tulip to a nearly black beer topped by a two finger dense light tan head that retains well and leaves decent lacing
S: Smells of pumpernickel bread with some slight fruity esters and grassy hops
T: Taste is rye bread and spice, caraway, slight fruitiness and just a hint of hop bitterness. Swallow is more pumpernickel rye bread and lingering bitter hops. Hints of dill on the swallow as well.
M: Lighter side of medium in body with slightly prickly carbonation and a refreshing finish
O: This beer has a lot of rye influence and I kind of dig it. Not a lot of saison flavor going on but overall a decent and interesting beer to drink.

Poured from tap 1 finger head. This ranks as one of the best looking beers I have ever seen, up there with live oak wiezenbock. The liquorice/ caraway came out of nowhere and slammed my palate. Whatever saison personality was there is gone.

 

 

A very unique beer indeed. Very smooth. The caraway seeds give this beer a nutty, licorice type quality. I'm not so sure that it fits a "saison" style per se, but I don't know what category you would put this in. Definitely worth a try. As for me, I really enjoyed it.