À La Fût Équinoxe

Brewed by À La Fût
Style: Saison
St-Tite, Canada

Tap @ Vices et Versa , Montreal. Didn t really care for this one too much. Had towards the end of a long shift of being overserved by Fred. Light color, sort of watery & light flavored. sort of corny, slight spicy & herbal character. Ok

On tap at Vices & Versa. The color is honey with a light beige head. The taste is of malt and herbs with some bitterness and spicies.The aroma is of spicies but just a bit watery.

Draught (6 oz sample) at Vices et Versa, Montreal. Clear golden colour. Aroma is yeasty and herbal, a fair bit of coriander and a bit of camomile. Soft mouthfeel. Flavour starts quite subdued, but some nice fruit and herbal notes come through in the middle, and the finish has a pleasant lingering flavour. Pales next to the Hopfenstark saison I tried a few samples earlier, but still nice enough.

en fût au vices et versa, bonne bière épicée longue en bouche, très agréble.

In short: A dry Saison-ish Belgian ale with a whole lot of coriander. Acceptable but not very enjoyable.
How: Tap at Vices & Versa
The look: Almost clear golden body with a small white head with medium retention
In long: A ton of spices on the nose, mainly coriander. Overwhelming yeast presence. Overall dryness sensation that seems to come from the yeast more than the timid hopping. The attack is rather juicy (citrus juice and flowers extract) but the dry yeast and coriander quickly take over everything and leave a dry spicy after-taste. Everything seems to clash together. Not a bad beer but the various elements work well together like a Hasidic jew and a Hamas leader.

Cloudy golden pour with a thin white head. Aroma of honey, fruits and yeast. Flavor of honey, yeast and sweetness too strong for a saison. The body is medium with a creamy texture and gentle carbonation.

My Bottom Line:
Milky coriander and honeyed grain accompany the simple doughy, bready yeast of this clean and sweet Saison offering.

Further Personal Perceptions:
-A sheet of foam dwindles into the clear(?) bronzed golden; some nice lacing is nonetheless drawn into the tulip.
-Bubblegummy phenols appear after a while.
-A better attenuation would help this beer greatly methinks. Drinkability is not optimal as is.
-Hops deserve more room in the flavor profile, and the one-directional yeast less so.

On tap at Vices et Versa.

Crystal clear straight golden brew. Initially tall and healthy white head slowly diminishes, but the considerable carbonation keeps it alive. Coriander jumps to the nose and reveals once again its strong tendency to overwhelm any hop intricacy or yeast nuance. The ensemble feels chive-like, herbal while a comparable saaz dose to their pils procures a pleasant bitterness. Sufficiently dry in the finish. Immensely clean offering, perhaps overly so, It feels as if their yeast strain could not bring much more than casual bready undertones. Perhaps fermented at regular cerevisiae temperatures rather than the roof level ones proposed for saisons as I could not get any esters out of it - either they were below my threshold or the coriander simply hid it all. Besides that, the carbonation also feels like that of their other beers I’ve tasted rather - that is small and tight bubbles that bite the tongue rather than a certain natural, expanding foaminess of big bubbles like top examples. Despite those difficulties of my part, the beer remained quite drinkable and a fan of spicy saisons could have enjoyed it a lot, it certainly has no unpleasant uncleanliness. Still, I’ve grown difficult with my saisons and this one felt like many North American examples in that it takes its inspiration from trends rather than classics and thus becomes basically a pilsner recipe fermented at ale temperatures with some belgian-inspired strain and in which a bunch of spices are added.