Brewdog: Celt Experience: Home Of The Fruitcakes (Wales: Fruit Saison: 6% ABV)
Visual: Strawberry red to peach. White dash at the edges but no real head. Clear. Almost looks like rose wine in light.
Nose: Strawberry yogurt. Raspberry ripple ice cream. Cream. Ice cream syrup. Peach.
Body: Sparkling and evanescent feel. Some oak. Light strawberry and peach. Slight funky yeast feel. Light grapes.
Finish: Cheese puffs. Dry oak. Wet air. Funky yeast. Peach. Malt chocolate.
Conclusion: You know, for collabfest this year, this is almost normal. By which I mean it is full of peach melba spritzer notes that is in fact a saison. With strawberries. and raspberries.
My definition of normal is fucked.
The aroma is wonderful – creamy and full of varied red fruit notes, mixing to create calls to strawberries and cream and raspberry ripple ice cream. The body is simpler, and less full bodied. It pulls peach elements from somewhere, and I honestly couldn’t tell you where, and uses some of that funky Belgian yeast character in feel to remind you it is a sasion, but doesn’t pull in more of the base saison than that. It means that the beer really doesn’t progress beyond feeling fun – which is not bad thing in itself, but doesn’t make for a classic beer. It manages to avoid a lot of the flaws of similarly fun fruit beers, it never feels cheap or syrupy however it is dominated by a few flavours and doesn’t really round itself out which means it misses its chance to really shine.
As mentioned the base saison really doesn’t push through – you get some rustic character, a bit of funky yeast, but it really doesn’t make the most of that part. It is light fun, and despite not having any peach in it, It does seem like a peach melba or strawberry ice cream beer. Simple and fun, but not much to come back to
So, a fun experience, but not a great one.
Background: Beer six of Collabfest 2014! At this point another drinker joined us as we had a seat spare – I love Brewdog pubs for stuff life this, you get a chance to just chat with fellow craft beer fans. Anyway, this one is a sasion made with raspberry and strawberry with, and- i quote – “a literal ton” of fruit. As always I am not an unbiased actor on Brewdog beers.
