Saison Bleu
Alosta Brewing Co.

 

 

 

a very neat beer, i have not had much from these guys, seems like they get up to some pretty adventurous brews. i also have not had ginger and sage together much in beer, kind of an interesting combination, like fighting fire with fire, two highly distinct and intense ingredients, but they are balanced well here, at least in respect to one another. i find them both a little too intense in both aroma and flavor for this to really be a drinkable or refreshing brew, but at the same time, they both come through really authentic, heavy herbal smudge stick sage, and spicy hot ginger. the base beer doesnt seem quite big enough on the malt flavor of body to really support this level of flavor, but it is dry and well carbonated in the end which helps a lot. the yeast is nothing too interesting, really the weak link here for me, sort of french sort of belgian, it ferments it all nice and cleanly, but really doesnt have enough pizzazz to cut through the additives at all here. a cool recipe, bold beer, they could stand to scale it back a little bit, but i like this one pretty well, and the ginger and sage together is really cool.

edit: i liked this a lot in the bottle too, the sage and ginger seem more tame than the draft i initially reviewed above here. we had this as the christmas dinner beer, which was a spicy cajun seafood and sausage boil, and it held up to the robust food incredible well, cleansed the palate but also added something really nice to it, enhancing, exactly what i want in a food beer. this is nice on its own, but excellent with this meal and likely countless others. had a blast with this, thanks to drlovemd87 for the hookup!

 

A: Super sagey - an absolute herbal bomb. There is a ginger character, lightly sweet with no other quality detected.

A: Golden color, totally clear with no head at all.

T: Clean, lightly sweet herbal-spice flavors. While the herbal sage and ginger notes are prominent, they are not nearly as overpowering as the aroma first indicates.

M: Medium bodied with moderate carbonation.

O:The blue sage and ginger aroma is too domineering for the rest of the aroma. The flavor is much better with a clean malt and prominent herbal note and lacks the typical citrusy character.