Roseate Blend 4
Floodland Brewing

 

 

I'm fairly certain this is blend 4. It reads bottled 10/08/10 and is 4.46%, and I'm pretty sure it's from the February '21 release.

Picture is clear clean rose. Pale watermelon might be a descriptor? Lovely. Nice little swell of white head that subsides to leave a network of spiderweb shaped bubbles and a tight ring around the glass. Some small amount of lacing.

Nose is lightly funky up front with a nice berry juiciness balancing it.

Flavour has swells of tart from the rhubarb with some of that juiciness from the rhubarb and the cherries, though neither one is super specific (the rhubarb certainly moreso than the cherry). The funk has some presence as well, but it all builds (especially the rhubarb and the funkiness) to an almost overwhelming tart/bitter topping that leads this to be a sipper for me. Abruptly herbacious/grapefruit pithy almost aspirin like bitterness that takes up the top two thirds or so is a bit distracting and not my favourite aspect of it.
So, I poured this into two different glasses: one for myself and one for my partner. The teku is where I get all the bitterness. Sipping out of the ~champagne flute-esque other glass the bitterness doesn't come across nearly as strong. I can't imagine that there's a real actual difference in flavour between the two glasses (I mean, sure, glass shape can impact aroma, but I can't imagine such for flavour), and neither one was getting down to like the bottom of the bottle so I don't think it's yeast or anything else so much as just an oddity, but there it is. FWIW, subsequent pours even into the teku still had a decent amount of pithy bitterness but nothing like that initial pour. *shrug*
The balaton does come through a touch more as it warm, moreso in the aroma than the taste, but a little bit there as well.

Smoothely tart aside from the aforementioned heavy bitterness from the one glass. Light carbonation.

Enjoyable, but not my absolute favourite from them. Cheers!

Cherry at the forefront on the nose with earthy rhubarb sweeping in after the initial cherry wave. The base beer is quite present and plays with the cherr/rhubarb tartness. Botanticals appear towards the end with a nice bitterness that reall gives it the Campari comparison. Musty cellar funk is more present on the second pour as the cherry takes a back seat and there's some peach and stone fruit notes as it warms. Overall it's a very tasty and interesting apertif saison. It's basically a cherry infused Campari beer.