Omnipollo: Prairie: Potlatch (Sweden: Saison: 7% ABV)
Visual: Pale lemon juice color. Utterly massive mounded white bubbled head that leaves lace.
Nose: Funky. Cannabis touch. Fresh dough. Sulphur. Crusty white bread.
Body: Peppery and lightly earthy. Oats. Slight lime. Milky. Muesli. Funky yeast character. Slight lime and gherkin.
Finish: Oats. Earthy bitterness. Sulphur. Peppery. Turmeric. Solid bitterness. Raisins. Muesli.
Conclusion: This feels like an old school, earthy, very rustic take on the saison. Now a quick google tells me that they used mosaic hops for this, which shocked the heck out of me, as this really doesn’t taste like it has those new fruity hop flavours in it. Everything comes across yeast funk, earthy character and grounding spice instead.
The aroma is fairly funky and kind of sulphurous, it isn’t as heavily present in the body but there is still some of that yeast funk going on, just in a more muted way. So, I enjoy a bit of wild yeast funk, and this is solidly funky, but I have to admit, apart from that I am finding it hard to get excited about this one.
Now, as time goes on more does come out, though still in the more earthy and rustic vein – there are also subtle raisin notes, which combine nicely with the milky and oat notes to give the impression of a funky , earthy, bitter saison bowl of muesli. Which is now a thing I guess.
A lot of the character seems to be in that funky feel, with the sulfur working itself in around the edges to give distinctive mouthfeel and flavor. It is hard to pin down, kind of steam beer like in mouthfeel I guess, but definitely there.
A solid saison but doesn’t do anything to displace Dupont or Fantome from the top of the saison mountain for me.
Background: This was recommended to me by the kind people of Independent Spirit – I took a look and Omnipollo are generally fun and weird , Prairie tend to make good saisons, and this is made with the excellent mosaic hop so I decided to give it a go. Apparently there are two version, a yellow wrapped one which is made in the USA, and this, the green wrapped version made in the EU. I put on Shadow’s Fall – Fallout From The War while drinking. Not their best album but still some solid metal tunes.
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