West Coast Farmhouse Saison
Granville Island Brewery

 

650ml bottle - another brew that seems out of season right now, through no fault of its own.

This beer pours a slightly hazy, pale golden yellow colour, with a teeming tower of puffy, finely foamy, and kind of airy bone-white head, which leaves some frosted windshield pattern lace around the glass as it quickly recedes.

It smells of gritty and grainy cereal malt, some old-country yeastiness, muddled domestic citrus rind, some hard water flintiness, and plain leafy, weedy, and floral green hop bitters. The taste is grainy and crackery pale malt, a lesser biscuity wheatiness, faded estery yeast, still hard to parse citrus peel, some black peppercorn spiciness, a damp minerality, and more underwhelming earthy, musty, and herbal hoppiness.

The carbonation is average in its palate-coddling frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and generally smooth, with just a touch of wayward son yeasty essence perhaps not obeying all local ordinances here. It finishes trending dry, the yeast and discreet hops landing as such.

Overall - yeah, this purports to be a west coast-styled, yet traditional Saison, but it comes off as much more the latter. Not a bad thing, and it's generally well-made, with a pleasant enough flavour profile. Just don't go in expecting a hopped-up brute of a brew.

This is more of an american style saison, if such a style were to exist. The beer pours and smells great. Taste is a little tamer and with less depth than standard bearers such as Du Pont. More zesty and citrousy with a lighter character and less sweetness than more typical Belgian style saisons. Still, It's a reasonably enjoyable craft saison.