I Am Gruit 2.0
Barbarian Brewing

a gruit style with some cool herbs and additions, orange blossom, woodruff, cinnamon, and vanilla. i know these t be simple beers usually from a malt standpoint, usually saison type in fermentation profile, an ancient style of beer typically done without hops but rather bittered with botanicals. its great to see a little resurgence in the style, and i thought this was pretty good. it ends up a little dessert to me though, the vanilla and cinnamon give it a wintery almost eggnog sort of vibe, both pretty robust in here, which kind of contrasts with the herbal fresh and springy essence these generally have in my experience. the woodruff is cool, but also a little sweet to me, a great flavor in a beer like this though. the citrus and floral aspects are still here from the orange blossom, but it all seems a little heavy. id like this to be drier, and they would have done well to get some bitterness from some orange peel or other herb for balance. i think the cinnamon element is a little overdone, but its hard to be too critical of a style we really dont have any baseline for, its open to interpretation by the brewers, and i thought this was unique and layered. ive been stoked on barbarian since i moved to idaho last month!