Change of Season
Kettlehead Brewing Company

From a 16oz can, dated 08/30/20 on the ring-holder-thingie. Served in tulip.

Pours a cold-hazed, pale honey-gold with a scant finger of head. Retention is unremarkable, leaving a fizzy, bubbly cap and a barely rouseable curtain of thin, slippery lacing.

Smell is powerfully earthy with notes of apple orchard and sweet hay.

The brewer’s description promises ‘lightly tart’ but there is no tart here. Instead of the tang and funk I associate with brett, or ‘mixed fermentation,’ whatever that may mean in this context, the taste is reminiscent of a shovelful of freshly turned garden soil. In other words, earthy, maybe the most purely earthy tasting beer I can recollect. Which is not a ding; it’s really pretty tasty.

Feel is bright and clean, medium bodied with heavy, zesty carbonation. It actually feels a lot like a typical Kettlehead IPA, just with the bubbles turned up a notch.

Overall, decent enough. It’s not a super complicated beer but, then, I don’t think farmhouse ales are necessarily meant to be. To my palate, it’s a hearty, robust, Kettlehead-ed take on a saison and, as such, was fairly enjoyable.