Rose
Fair Isle Brewing

really cool subtle little oak aged funky saison here done with second use cherries and rose geranium, really pretty beer, springy and floral, ancient herbal medicinal vibes too, rose wine, cut flowers, blooms and pollen, raspberry and cranberry tangy twang from the cherries, a subtle waft of vanilla from the oak treatment, really fermentation forward too as is the case with fair isle when at their best, which is pretty much always, really cool to find this one on tap in the wild too, one of my favorite breweries anywhere right now. pale beer thats stuck halfway between pink and orange in tone, frosted looking with a creamy white head on top, short but lasting. the nose on this is way cool tart yes, but also a tad sweet from the cherries as well, perhaps some raw wheat in the mash, its deeply earthy without being malty per se, and the rose geranium is highly fragrant, pink florals, guava, bee balm, citrus, all really compatible with the subtle spicy saison esters and light funk in here, a vinous sharpness is more evident as it warms up some. the flavor is way heavier on the rose geranium than the cherry, its majorly floral and tea-like to me, with some sweet and some tartness from the cherries kind of just adding to what it already does, dont mind the apparent herbal bitterness it adds at all either, a cool ingredient front and center! nice hearty oak to this, definite wine vibes, and some young but established bretty funkiness that plays super well with the other elements, rustic for sure but also well refined, white pepper and straw at the end, wheat, crabapple pucker, and nice minerality softening it some. overall very impressive, with lovely carbonation and a ton of complexity, very special.