Great to see Granville Island‘s saison return after its stellar autumn debut last year. Brewmaster Vern Lambourne has made minor tweaks to the recipe for the beer’s new Thirsty Farmer look, which thankfully retains all its Belgian-style goodness.
This beer is a lovely, glowing opaque lemon-orange colour with a gloriously rich, bright white head that laces well, possibly due to the addition of wheat in the grain bill.
On the nose is apple juice, orange peel, a lick of lime, a whiff of hard cheese and subtly spiced perfume. Mouthwatering.
There’s an initial mineral bite from the frothy carbonation that carries over into deeper, spicy yeast tones featuring touches of clove and white pepper. There’s some rye in the recipe that may also be contributing to these deep, earthy tones. Along with some bready malt flavour, they underpin gentle citrus notes of orange and light lemon. It’s a subtly sweet beer, finishing with a graceful swell of bitterness; perhaps a little on the weighty side for a saison, but still wonderfully refreshing and easy to drink.
Plus, it’ll come up trumps with almost anything you pair it with outside of dessert. With this record-breaking weather, it’ll certainly go with practically anything off the grill — pepper-rubbed steak, robustly flavoured sausages, lamb chops, spicy, skewered meat or fish, planked salmon, you name it.
Beer Cat: Uncertain. I’m beginning to think he’s bigoted toward Belgians.
650ml, $5.50, from government liquor stores
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