Great Lakes Grassroots Ale

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

From fall trip to Westlake, Ohio. I’ve started to like saison beers lately. This beer is average for the style - I just think the chamomile isn’t appealing to me. Not a bad beer, just not preferred.

12 oz bottle. Pours golden with almost no head. Aroma of chamomile, although slight. A little too spicy that covers any good flavor. Average at best.

Going for funky pizazz and not even on the inside of the rim. Grassy, thin, a chalky mineral taste. Not gritty but tastes gritty.

12 oz bottle. Pours a hazy golden color topped by a small, foamy white head that settles to a thin film. The aroma is very vegetal with hints of chamomile and an unwanted pungent smell of stewed peas. The flavor follows suit with more of the stewed peas and other weird vegetal flavors. Medium bodied with subtle carbonation and lengthy, spicy finish. This is the 2nd time I’ve had this and the first time just thought it was a bad bottle. Now I know that it’s just not good at all.

12oz bottle shared by SoLan. Pours a hazy gold with a small off-white head. Nose and flavor both dominated by vegetal canned peas. Let it sit 10 more minutes, still unpalatable. A summer 2009 release, drank in November 2009; can’t have gone bad that fast? The mouthfeel wasn’t overly carbed, so it didn’t seem like a typical infection, but some is not right here.

12 oz. bottle from The Party Source. Pours a hazy orange-gold color with a small eggshell white head and lots of visible sediments. Aroma of Belgian yeast, straw, grass, honey, citrus, coriander, farmhouse, and floral notes. Flavor is vegetal and yeasty, with notes of citrus, banana, straw, grass, dirt, and sweet malts. Medium bodied, with a dry, yeasty mouthfeel. This one is appropriately named- earthy and loyal to the farmhouse ale style. It just has an odd flavor and lingering aftertaste of grass and yeast.

Clear amber with a fleeting head. Big earthy herbal grassy celery salty aromas. Minerally vegetable herbal spice rack, dusty pale malt flavors. V8 beer. Thanks Juice for this bottle.

12 oz bottle. Pours a slightly hazy dark gold body with a small fizzy white head that retained as a thin covering. The nose is a weird mix of flowers and herbs found in the kitchen with a very light wheat and yeast accent. The flavor is just a melange of flowers and household spices with a bit of yeast and pepper on the back end. Not much of a Saison going on here I have to say. Could be worse, at least it was flavorful.