Sumac Saison
Windfall Brewing Co

my first from these guys, never even heard of them before this, cool beer, sumac has me intrigued, and i think that part of this is super successful, but i do wish the base saison was a little more compelling, its so clean, so belgian-esque, so standard, and i cant help but wish this to be a little more rustic, its so basic and polished, it lacks true farmhouse character, and it falls into that trap that so many american takes on this style do, which is that it likely buys "saison" yeast from some big supplier and makes a super simple mash, ferments hot with it, and calls it saison, which is to completely ignore yeast complexity in the style, any sort of agricultural or terroir component, or anything that fits the farmhouse language at all, which is doubly a shame here because this beer uses sumac, and botanical saison is generally amazing, so its like they got the hard part right and the easy part wrong to some extent, not that its bad saison, just that its predictable and uninteresting, which is antithetical to saison in general when they are good, if that makes sense. basically a belgian blonde of sorts, clear and golden beer, some spiciness in the ferment, white wine, cooked pears, known esters, white pepper and coriander nuance, more pils malt than wheat malt it seems, light and dry, lightly vinous, fine. the sumac is the cool part, its tart but not astringent, medicinal in a kind of primitive way thats really exciting, and it is in fact very compatible with this yeast. it has soft red berry notes, a tight floral thing, pollen-like, pink lemonade, citric twang, really a cool addition to this, totally makes the beer for me, and it certainly adds the interest the base beer lacks. if this was a little more thoughtful as a base beer, a little more fermentation driven in a less generic way, it would be an epic beer really, even some brett in here would do this wonders. i dont mean to be too critical, its clever and well executed as it is, its well carbonated and lively feeling, light to drink, not over flavored, and pretty well refined actually. the sumac is way cool, ill have to pop in here next time i am in the greater denver area...