Acquired Taste Tea Saison
Brewsters Brewing Company & Restaurant - Eleventh Avenue

1L howler from Sherbrooke Liquor store (their current '#YEGkeg') - man it's always better to get this kind of thing here than at the brewpubs, I wonder why that is? Anyways, made with tea from the Acquired Taste Tea Company, blah blah blah.

This beer pours a murky, medium apricot amber colour, with three fingers of puffy, rocky, and mildly fizzy off-white head, which leaves some random archipelago lace around the glass as it quickly wafts off.

It smells of sugary caramel malt, juicy mango flesh (like the overripe Ataulfos that my kid happily tore through last week), some fruity herbal tea (mit Splenda!), a hint of earthy yeastiness, a touch of wan spice, and very tame leafy, musty, and floral green hop bitters. The taste is bready and doughy caramel malt, some muddled exotic fruitiness, still rather sugary green tea essences, a fading yeastiness, equally checking out early spicy notes, and more weak leafy, earthy, and musky floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is average in its palate-coddling frothiness, the body a solid middleweight, and mostly smooth, as the fruity character goes the long mile in assuaging any trifling issues here, as such. It finishes off-dry, the malt, fruity tea, and squashed-down Saison character coming to terms as best they can.

Overall - this comes across as a rather engaging and flavourful iteration of this brewery's so-called 'French' tea Saison. The mango and unspecified Sencha tea work well together, providing a very fruity and easy to put back brew, something duly fitting for our relatively early lapse into, um, summer?