Dark Farm
Bent Stick Brewing Co.

650ml bottle - a purported 'darkish table strength Farmhouse ale'.

This beer pours a hazy (I think) very dark brown colour, with a teeming tower of puffy, finely foamy, and creamy tan head, which leaves a bit of splattered Rorschach test lace around the glass as it very slowly (and aided by a nearby spoon) recedes.

It smells of semi-sweet, roasted caramel malt, wheaten cereal, muddled bruised orchard fruit, a touch of earthy yeast, and a bit of weedy and dank hay-like bitterness. The taste is bready and doughy pale and caramel malt, an equal edgy wheatiness, underripe banana, overripe plums and cherries, a suggestion of free-range ashiness, some rather sedate estery yeast, ephemeral black licorice, and still very tame earthy and leafy green hop bitters.

The carbonation is quite loaded for bear from the start, what with its essentially overbearing frothiness, the body a so-so medium weight, and for some reason more or less smooth, with a small, slowly evolving airy creaminess. It finishes off-dry, the caramelized and roasted wheaty character most prominent.

Overall, once you get past the pesky, overabundant bubbles, this is one easy-going, pleasant to quaff dark Saison, with the focus on a smooth, seamless mouthfeel, rather than how much astringent yeast and spice they could have thrown at you. Worth checking out, especially if they address the now oft-mentioned bottling issue.