Saison Lactée
Champ Libre Brasserie & Distillerie

Bottle: Poured a hazy/cloudy bright yellow color ale with a large pure white foamy head with good retention and some good lacing. Aroma of hay floral notes with light lactose notes and light yeasty ester. Taste is a mix of saison rustic malt with some lactose notes, some hay with a yeasty finish. Body is pretty full with good carbonation. Non-typical saison with nice twist and good refreshing factor.

16 oz. can. Pours a pale, murky, yellow. Smells of grain and a weird aroma that must be the buttermilk. Tastes of grain and some bright yeastiness. Back end again has a little bit of that flavor that must be buttermilk. Light body. Strange texture. It's a little bit slick. Low carbonation. Fascinating, but not really standout.

A: It has to be one of the worst looking beer I've ever seen. It pours a super hazy greyish light yellow with an off white head that dissipates in an instant (although it had decent volume on the pour). No lacing at all.

S: Well, this does smell quite rustic for sure. The hay is clearly apparent in the smell as well as the buttermilk. The raw wheat used in this bring some banana notes you usually see in German hefeweizen. There are some typical belgian spices with cloves, cinnamon and cardamom first as well as a light amount of dried mint. Maybe a tiny amount of oranges. Very interesting for sure but not mind blowing either.

T: Quite a bit sourer than I expected with notes of green bananas and light lemon juice. The buttermilk and the hay is more in the background but very much there still, especially in the aftertaste. The spices are more pronounced with notes of cinnamon, cloves and cardamom and some mint like I said. The beer starts out fresh and fruity but ends up warm and round. Very weird beer but still super coherent (big surprise here) and the whole thing holds up.

M: Light and round as it should but the carbonation is bit too "spiky" for what you'd expect from a Saison.

O: This beer isn't mindblowing, but it's super solid and I got to give it to them for trying something so "out there" that still makes sense and is coherent taste wise. I'm extremely impressed they managed to pull this one off like this as it was a really tall order IMO (somehow I can't put a score in overall that is higher than any other score I gave to the beer). I think I'm now a fan of this brewery for trying actual new ideas with success.

These days in Quebec, all I see "new" are ridiculous ideas like making a brettanomyces edition of an Imperial Stout when the base beer isn't even all that good. This beer is actually creative and the guys at Champ Libre seem to have the chops to pull off their crazy ideas.