Spookster
Frontier Brewing Company and Taproom

had high hopes for this place, especially popping in for the grand opening, thought they might have a more robust and refined beer lineup, but they had just a few of their own, and one of them was this one. i am so sick and tired of this kind of saison, the generic yeast pitch run hot on a thin pale wheat base, past estery to phenolic, even chemical, without any attempt to add character beyond the runaway yeast, nothing rustic or interesting or farmy about it, probably the most often bastardized style by american breweries, id rather they just make a simple pale wheat beer than confuse the drinker with the saison language. this has pear and red apple notes, light bandaid and dried herbs, and floor cleaner and melting plastic notes, the yeast just dominates this, seems like it was fermented way too hot, past bubblegum and candy and white wine into problematic territory. now to be fair ive had way worse than this, and this still has some redeeming elements, white pepper, lemongrass, sweet orange, honey, and its light and bubbly and dry to drink, if unclean on the finish, but its still a miss for me, even for a clean saison its poorly executed, and even a small pour from their self service set up was plenty for me. overripe banana, tangy cider, and light metallic character at the end. i wanted a lot more from this, but would have settled for essentially a decent belgian blonde, but even that is too much to ask of this one. a bad first impression from a cool place. is this an extract beer? sort of tastes like it and their tiny little pilot brewery suggests they might not have the means to do much more than that...