Saint Somewhere Saison Athene

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 7

Bottled@Chriso Gaylord Tasting. Hazy yellowish golden colour with mediumsized white head. Aroma is wheat, yeast, spices and some slight notes of yeast as well. Flavour is fruits, yeast, spices, some wood as well as mild notes of barnyard. Rather spicy burning aftertaste.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

750 ml bottle, cork says 2008. Pours a clear golden yellow with a creamy white head that retains well and laces the glass.

The aroma is funky yeast, floral hops and a little leather and pepper.

The flavor is a little sweet malts and fruit and some spicy yeast with a dry lightly bitter floral hop finish. As it warms, sweet fruits start to dominate. The mouthfeel is medium bodied with spritzy carbonation.

Overall, it's decent but not one of the better saisons I've had.

Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 3 | Mouthfeel: 5 | Flavor: 4 | Overall: 5

Paired this with Chicken stuffed with sausage. A lot of carbonation to this one. Popped the cork like it was champagne. The carbonation is a little disconcerting in it’s distraction from the flavoring on the palate. A cloudy orange body. Big, robust frothy white head with decent hang time. Settles into a nice lacing. The aroma is fruity and like a damp rug. There’s a smoothness through the carbonation on the palate. The taste is spicy and lemony. Not very good chilled. Defintely let this on go to room temperature.

Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Pours orange with a huge fluffy head. Aroma is floral, quite peppery and malty. Flavors are spicy and peppery, floral and refreshing fruits with a dash of cloves. I thought this was good and I'll be looking forward to trying their other one soon. If you've had a bad experience with this beer I did hear something about a problem with one of the earlier batches which has since been corrected. May be worth a re-visit.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 3 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 6

A cloudy yellow appearance with a large white head. The aroma flat out stinks with some skunk and barnyard notes. The flavor contains some lemons and vinegar. This one is a little off. Overall different but not too enjoyable.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Courtesy of Beerlando: Poured a light dirty yellow color ale with a large foamy head with good retention and some lacing. Aroma of funky yeast is easily detectable and quite enjoyable. Taste is also dominated by the funky yeast but it is not as dominant as the aroma would suggest. Nice Belgian type malt base is also noticeable but hops presence is hard to notice. Body is quite full with some good carbonation and alcohol is not apparent.

Aroma: 4 | Appearance: 3 | Mouthfeel: 3 | Flavor: 3 | Overall: 3

This could be one of the worst saisons I've ever had. It was a first though. I've never had a beer that had the aroma of cotto salami, yet here it was. How the hell does a brewer get that? I mean, it's pretty awful (the beer, not cotto salami). The aroma aside, the beer pours out an orangish color with a bit of floaties swimming around. Slightly sweet and spicy on the palate, there really is little else to say about this beer. Just a really poor example of a saison.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 4 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 4 | Overall: 3

Tasted at the May Northern California Beer Tasting. This saison poured a cloudy copper color from a corked 750 bottle. Large sized white foamy head. The aroma is sweet, yeasty and spicy. But there was some beef or meat in there as well. Definitely not a good thing for a beer. A medium bodied saison. The malts were fruity and sweet. The hops are earthy. There was something just not right here, the beer was a train wreck of flavors. Spices, fruit and yeast were OK. The lunchmeat flavors weren’t. ODD. Need to re-sample if possible. Mouthfeel is full. Finish is clean. Aftertaste is beefy.

Aroma: 4 | Appearance: 4 | Mouthfeel: 4 | Flavor: 4 | Overall: 4

Thanks eagle. Poured an orangey color with good sedimentation. Where was the carbonation?? flat. Aroma was spices all over ginger the most. Flavor was loaded with spices ginder and coriander caramel malts. Something in the one left a bad flavor in my mouth throughout.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 9

Most Recent Bottling with Brettanomyces added to the bottle
Sampled March 2008
A careful pour yields a fluffy, almost four finger thick, pale, off-white colored head that grows to five-fingers in height as I slowly inspect it. As the head slowly recedes it forms dynamic, textured surfaces and lofted surfaces as well as substantial lacing on the sides of my tulip glass; yep, the carbonation in this one is definitely a-ok. The beer is fully hazy and shows a pale amber, orange-tinged color that shows straw-gold notes when held up to the light. The aroma is still quite spicy, as I expected from this latest release; quite pepper-like with notes of clove, cardamom, anise and a very perfume-like character; perfume aromatics make me think of lavender and herbal flower petals. This also has a slightly musty, earthy, funky yeast signature to it. Towards the end some sweet malt character comes through with aromas of honey, sweet grain and it even accents some orange-zest aromatics.

Soft and creamy tasting, yet with a definite peppery carbonic bite, the beer is light and quaffable like a good Saison should be yet still has some body to it. The flavor is again quite perfume / potpourri like with lots of floral characteristics and also has a substantial white pepper / grains of paradise note to it. This still has some sweetness to it with flavors of sweet grain, floral-pale-honey flavors as well as a touch of sweet orange peel. Turpene-rich spice notes of clove, cardamom and something that is almost allspice like. The spice flavors tend to mellow a bit as my palate gets used to them, but, especially the floral-perfume ones, they are still the dominant flavor character of this brew. The spice notes almost have a metallic quality to them. Towards the finish some more malt character is noticeable in the form of freshly crushed grain flavors, some lightly toasted malt notes and touch of soda-cracker flavors. Earthy spice notes, green coriander and some of the clove notes are definitely a signature of the Saison yeast.

The Brettanomyces has yet to contribute, but that is not surprising as this is less than a month old. Thankfully Solan was kind enough to include a bottle for me to age. Speaking of which, over-carbonation might be an issue if there is indeed Brettanomyces added to this at bottling as this is already pretty well carbonated. This beer is a whole lot better with the carbonation and, unsurprisingly the flavor profile has changed quite a bit; almost to the point that I could be convinced that the brewer may have played with the relative amounts / additions of spices in this batch (though it is just as likely that the carbonation has amplified / muted certain aspects of the beer on its own). I sort of like the potpourri nature of this brew, but I could see how it would get on some peoples nerves as it is quit prominent. Some age and the Brett should take care of this though.

Likely Batch 1; Sampled January 2008
I say likely batch one as the cork looks like it was done by someone operating a corking machine for the first time (way to deep) or at least who ordered the wrong size wires for these corks and it definitely has carbonation issues (see below).

The bottle has an amazing amount of sediment for such a sparsely carbonated beer; there is some carbonation as a careful pour sees a few lonely bubbles meandering there way up through the beer at a time. There is no head to speak of and the beer is a lightly hazy, gold color. The aroma is quite a bit spicier than I was expecting, or at least it seems like it actually has spices added to the beer rather than relying on the yeast character to contribute this naturally. There is some nice fruitiness here in the nose though. I can't quite place what the actual spices are, but there is one particular note that jumps out at me that I should recognize. The spices evoke thoughts of nutmeg, clove, some cardamom and lavender. Up front this seems a touch tart in the nose, but if you really dig into it the aroma starts to have notes of honey and perhaps some orange-blossom notes to it.

The taste is sweet, with just a hint of carbonation to it. The low carbonation definitely makes this seem sweeter than it would be otherwise. Spice flavors are definitely found here and remind me of lavender and some turpene rich spices (a mix of clove, nutmeg and cardamom). The spice notes provide a touch of piquancy to the finish but there is also a touch of bitterness for balance there as well. Fruity notes of apples and pears are just noticeable under all the spice notes, but there is definitely a honey like flavor here that melds in with the ample spice notes fairly well.

I can't quite nail down what spices were used here, but I am almost certain that some were used in the brewing of this beer. I like the flavors that are here, but the lack of carbonation definitely is a loss. I do think that the spices could be backed off on just a notch, I like their contribution, but it is just a bit too loud and tends to drown out some of the other worthy Saison characteristics. This would be quite a lively beer & quite a bit more balanced if it had an ample carbonation. I'll just have to get another bottle of a properly carbonated batch.