Afternooner Tea Saison - Hibiscus, Rose Hip And Plum
Situation Brewing

1L howler from the Century Park Liquor Depot in Edmonton (hey guys, keep up the good work!). As the name sez, this is a variant on their base tea Saison, using the stated ingredients.

This beer pours a cloudy, medium salmon amber colour, with one finger of weakly puffy, loosely foamy, and mostly just bubbly dirty white head, which leaves a bit of low-lying mitochondrial lace around the glass as it quickly blows off.

It smells of sugary stone fruit (kind of reminiscent of my kid's fancy gummy bears), grainy and bready caramel malt, a hint of earthy yeastiness, herbal tea, and some leafy, weedy, and musky floral hop bitters. The taste is juicy plum flesh, simple syrup, muddled floral botanicals, bready and crackery pale malt, a lesser caramel/toffee sweetness, faint earthy spice, faded yeast, and more understated weedy, leafy, and herbal green hoppiness.

The carbonation is pretty low-key in its distracted-seeming frothiness, the body a decent middleweight, and generally smooth, nothing really getting in the way of a swell time here. It finishes off-dry, the fruit still tussling with the mixed floral esters for lingering dominance.

Overall - this iteration of the Afternooner certainly lives up to the best of the previous versions, as I am digging the candied nature of the plums, and the restrained hibiscus and rose hip essences. I was expecting old-school Turkish Delight, but, yeah, got something that I'm glad my pre-schooler is not around right now to hear me talk about!