Saison de Pipaix

Brewed by Brasserie à Vapeur
Style: Saison
Leuze-Pipaix, Belgium

Holy shit, this smells like the garden section of a Home Depot. Total flowers and dirt, even some mint. It’s a pretty amazingly overwhelming scent but not sure it’s what I want in a beer. Surprisingly not as vingegar and sour as expecting. Flavor is very minty and flowers. like crushed flowers. you know what? too much flowers and i don’t like it.

Bottle. Murky, honey brown color with a thin white head. Aroma is piney and sour with floral notes. Dry with a sour aftertaste. Less carbonation than I anticipated from a saison. Fairly watery, not bad but not great.

Of 3, my highest rated Vapeur. Bottle with Poperinge from the brewery I believe. Amber with lots of bubbles. Carbonation keeps a big head alive. Zesty refreshing aroma of wild berries and flowers. Light body. Flavour of fruit, champagne and yeast.

Rather spicey, peppary aroma, slightly bretty, vinegary. Medium dark yellow/amber color, tiny off white. Flavor is very vinegary, tart, lots of sourness, touch of honey, cherries, oak. Finish is very dry, tart.

Bottled 750. Just a funny little stub of a cork in the bottle. Which was fitting, because this was just a funny little stub of a Saison. ;) The beer was a hazy, medium-yellow color with a small, frothy, white, mostly and quickly diminishing head. Aroma was malty with a light note of toasted grain; hoppy with a light herbal note and a moderate note of lemon; Yeasty with a light note of barnyard and dough—no backbone or funk at all; Miscellaneous moderate note of apple cider vinegar. The flavor was lightly sweet, moderately acidic, moderately bitter with an average-length, lightly sweet, moderately acidic finish. The body was light, the texture was watery and the carbonation was lively.

Hazy amber/copper. Large, dense, frothy, off white head. Sharp grainy, herbal nose, identifiable anise, the rest blend togerther as generic "spice." Some funk in there also. Aroma really opening up as it warms. Ginger, pepper, and sourness all showing up now. All the same flavors on top of some soft, lightly sweet malt. Sourness steps it up a notch or two. Some definite citrus tree character. Fresh bitter notes. Finishes dry, sour, musty. Medium/full body, smooth. Excellent saison, complex and easy to drink.

A combination rating for two 1995 bottles bought at the same store at the same time and very much different from each other. Both bottles poured nearly the same, hazed coppery hue with a medium sized fizzy head which faded and left little lace.

One bottle had notes of musty yeast and cork, generic acidic fruit, pepper and peat, little depth. The flavors were muted and very oxidized with the black pepper and anise the dominate factor. A lot of sourness up front as well before fading to nothingness.

The other was brighter with notes of mint, green tea, hay, green apples, orange peel, ginger, and star anise. More subdued Saison character with the spices and flowery components in harmony. While a bit oxidized, it did not come off old tasting or as dry on the palate as the first bottle.

The beer is hit and miss so it seems, the overall rating for bottle #1 would be a 2.5 and for bottle #2 a 3.8. My rating is leaning towards the better aspects.

At first I thought this beer was bad due to its extreme lack of carbonation (almost completely flat) and sour and cardboardy taste (along with its 1995 label). Looking at other people’s ratings though, it seems this is quite normal! Doesn’t really come off as a saison at all: more like a gueuze lambic or such. Very drinkable though sour; barnyardy taste; sour apples; cardboard and funk. Can’t say I notice any of those spices listed in the description.