Great Lakes Grassroots Ale

Brewed by Great Lakes Brewing Company
Style: Saison
Cleveland, Ohio USA

Great Lakes Grassroots Ale is a slightly hazy pale yellow ale with a huge, creamy, dense white head that has excellent retention and lacing. It sure smells like a farmhouse. It’s funky, with notes of old fruit, barnyard and bret. It’s medium bodied and super velvety smooth with a clean finish. It’s slightly tart at the beginning of the taste and then it turns smokey. The aftertaste is like bacon. This is a super funky ale. [Sampled at the 2009 Flower City Brewers’ Fest at Frontier Field, Rochester, NY]

cloudy orange gold color with a thin white head that goes away pretty quick, spicy esters in the nose, very sweet flavor, herbal, soft and spicy hops and esters meld together, big yeasty characters, black pepper, this would be a hard beer to drink more than one of, very sweet

Not excited about this at all. Sample at Great Lakes in a plastic cup from bottle. Poured yellow with a sad little white head. Super spicy and overly sweet. Glad it was only a dinky sample.

I was pleasantly surprised by this, after seeing the ratings here. It looks like honey, not much of a head. The smell is, admittedly, strange. Definite citrus, but I can’t quite define what else. It’s got a very earthy flavor, a little peppery near the end. Crisp and refreshing on the whole though - it’s really not as bad as the 2.99 rating it has (at the time of this rating), IMO.

Bottle courtesy of MarkWise. Poured a hazy golden color with a thin off-white head. Nose is earthy and spicy with notes of chamomile, lemon zest, bread, and grass. Thin to medium body with lively carbonation. Flavor is sweet and spicy with a big floral character. Hints of ginger, honey, and corriander. Slightly acidic with some vegetal undernotes. Seems under attenuated. Finishes peppery. Not great.

Mostly offensive floral and vegetable aromas. Clean slightly sour flavor, ruined by the sickening aroma. I suppose some might enjoy this - I don’t.

Tasted this at the GToMW in Madison last weekend and having a pilsner glass of it tonight. Weedy aroma....fitting for tihs brew. I’m a new one to saisons, and this one is giving me an average impression of them. However, I fully know there are better ones in my future. Head disappears rapidly as does the lacing on the glass. Spicy yet not overpoweringly so. Light carbonation and mouthfeel. Light to medium sourness/bitterness. My first Great Lakes brew, but won’t be my last as I wasn’t overwhelmed by the Grassroots Ale.

Uniquely weird aroma of Band-Aids, bar soap and garden weeds, with overpower any Farmhouse ale. Really not my favorite. Appearance is cloudy honey golden yellow. Decent, short-lived head. Flavor is cigarette ashes; secondary flavor is lemon and farmhouse yeasts, as well as black pepper. Tolerable, but barely. Palate is ashy and bubbly; fine for style. Not a good beer, unfortunately. The aroma kills it for the most part. I find it hard to finish.