Saison Lacombe Été
Blindman Brewing

There is plenty to like in Blindman's summer saison. It's a delightful gold colour, with a substantial white foam head. The smell is alluring - faint spice and malt, but it is topped by the wonderful variety of flavours. White pepper, coriander, banana and clove. The substantial malt base is a delight and this beer is incredibly lively in the glass. There is much goodness at work here!

Had on-tap at the brewery. Translucent bright gold, pale lager-y colour (not much head by the time it reached me); quite effervescent, this beer seems to follow a few different impulses: a slight "farm-y" character, but the real show is the spice medley: peppercorns, faint juniper, clove, coriander, maybe faint citrus, wheat flakes. Light in flavour, slightly tart, with big carbonation but light body.

A really nice summer beer, low in ABV but with some flavour zing.

1L howler from Sherbrooke Liquor store, whose understanding of French diacritical marks could use some freshening up, it would appear.

This beer pours a hazy, pale golden yellow colour, with three fat-ass fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and very bubbly chalky white head, which leaves some decent concentrated island group lace around the glass as it quickly blows off.

It smells of gritty and grainy pale malt, a touch of cereal wheatiness, earthy yeast, white and black pepper mill and stale clove spice, a suggestion of very dry banana chips, and fairly plain leafy, weedy, and floral hop bitters. The taste is semi-sweet, grainy and doughy pale malt, a more fresh-seeming banana-forward and lesser red-berry fruitiness, muddled table-top ground peppercorns, gently phenolic yeast, and more understated earthy, weedy, and grassy green hoppiness.

The bubbles are quite mild and inoffensive via their meek frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and mostly smooth, just a touch of wayward son yeastiness taking things down a peg or two here. It finishes well off-dry, the fading banana-tinted mixed malt contending with a zingy lingering black pepper joint.

Overall, the 'Été' (summer) version of this seasonal series comes off, yeah, a lot fruitier than its strangely recent-seeming (much less than a quarter's time has elapsed in between) brethren. Once again, well-made, easy to drink, and full of the inherent goodness of the base style.