Saison
Wolf Tree Brewery

Can from Uptown Market. Canned 22 Sept.

Nearly gushing, this is a crystal clear light yellow with a dense, white head with excellent retention and lacing. The nose is a blend of a classic saison and Belgian Pale Ale, with a blend of dry, snappy malt with a wonderful yeast expression - floral, grainy, spicy, mildly bubblegum-like, mildly fruity with pear and a little honey. Dry, grainy, straw like malt provides the backbone here. Just a hint of sulfur/funk. The palate opens mildly spicy and mildly sweet, a blend of pear, a little clove, pepper, grains of paradise and a light mace note. The mid-palate has dry, straw-like malt with a little bit of a floral flavor. Drying, mildly grainy and mildly bitter on the finish, this beer is highly carbonated, is crisp, clean and outrageously refreshing. Well done!

On this saison, I'm with StonedTrippin'. In my assessment, this is a good saison for the summer table; but lacking complexity it is not a particularly good eating companion in the other three seasons.

This Saison Looks like the work of a cotton candy maker. I do not recall a saison that had this voluminous a head on both the first and second pours. While I like that expressiveness, there is little lace sticking around. (No one is perfect.) Smells clue me into this saison not having a mix of different grains or a yeast that works them into fruitiness. Tastes are pretty close: refreshing, but not showing a long history of the knowledge that subtleties in the grains and yeast are the key to this style working. In my mouth, this is sufficiently bubbly and refreshing and succeeds.

I had Wolf Tree's Saison with a pizza. It worked. Wolf Tree is figuring out this style.

All that said, this is a pretty good saison for a five year old growing up on the Oregon coast... pretty far from Belgium. Their gastropub menu even has mussels on it. But... they also have a cryptic website, so I have to limit the good things I say about them.

super minimal clean saison here, easy drinking, dry, and snappy and refreshing for summer, but nowhere near as complex and fermentation driven as i generally look for saison to be, at least the best of them. very well made beer, better than many even, but in the end its a generic american saison with a clean french type yeast profile, lightly estery and more belgian than farmhouse. very pale and clear, very light in body, could be as simple as european pils malt and pale wheat in the mash, minerals and an almost ice water sort of crispness, but a little raw wheat, a pinch of rye, spelt, something to make this more rustic would be a nice addition, even in small proportion. i like the intangibles here, the carbonation is awesome, the beer is an all day drinker, and the hops seem old world and right on for this, saaz maybe, but the beer overall lacks the distinctness and nuance i look for in the best examples of the style. encouraging, probably awesome as a base for some dry hopping, then call it a belgian single or something, but its not incomplete on its own either, its just tough to put this in the same category as something like a dupont, well made as it is. i liked it, but i also hoped for more given their apparent rural roots...