Comb
Plan Bee Farm Brewery

Draft at South Philadelphia Taproom in Philly, PA, july 2018

 

First from this brewery for me and it was a fascinating debut. Appearance is typical wild ale with some bright cloudiness with a white collar. Smell leans into the tart fruit: lemon, apple, lime, oak, white grape, pear, with some toasted nuts, and wildflower. Taste had all of this but with some profound yeast and campfire smoke, very odd but strangely good. Feel is wild, smoky, earthy, wood and tart while staying decently bright. Fun!

Winter, 2019 batch. Pours a semi-translucent dark yellow / light orange with moderate head and minimal head retention. You can smell that this is a wild ale from three feet away. Up close it's all funk, and more than hints that this is going to be plenty tart on the tongue. Taste is more complex than I have the skill to describe. At first it's smoothly tart, which sounds like an oxymoron, but still seems right to me. In the middle it's a taste I recognize, but can't place. Maybe it's the wine barrels? At the end and in the aftertaste it's almost changing from sip to sip. Thought I tasted some smoke at one point, now that's gone. Overall this is a very complex beer that I am really enjoying.

Not sure which batch this is but this 750 is amazing, one of the best plan beers in my recollection. Not a simple acid bomb, there are layers upon layers of oak, fruit, vanilla, balsamic. Really impressive and brings to mind some of the better Belgian coolship beers. Slightly sweet like a Flemish red but finishes mostly dry. Top notch.

 

Winter 2019 batch

Cloudy medium orange-amber, with ample, very fine, long-lasting white head , that leaves almost two inches of lacing.

Smell is all acetic sourness, at first. As it warms slightly , there are slight aromas of just-turned-over earth, freshly-cut black chatarelles, white oak bark (the inside , falling off seasoned wood +/-) , and vague sour stone fruit - beach plum is as close as I can approximate it.

Taste is lemon, lime zest, acetic sourness , a vague nuttiness (Brazil nuts?), oak, chanterelles (cooked, yellow), and a slight,dull sage-like (not exact) herbal flavor . Moderate bitterness , that lingers a bit.

Feel is light, slightly oily, with moderate, very fine carbonaton tingle. The tip of the tongue is left exhausted,dulled, and partially numb.

Overall, well-done, and very enjoyable. Recommend it, if you get the chance to try it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(From Winter 2015)
The beer comes in a medium haze pale amber with a sparkly white head.

The aroma is tart, pear, tart apple, oak, light bready malts, light earthy funk.

The flavor has a medium tart quality of sweet tarts, prickly champagne like carbonation, a bit of dry apple cider, a hint of funk, a biscuity malt, onto a dry oaky finish, with hints of smoke and minerality lingering.