Saison de Pipaix

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

Pours a darker-than-expected copper color with a quickly fading white head. Pear, old flowers, light wood and spices in the nose. Flavor has notes of ginger, lemon, hay, orange, apple, herbal noble hops and light toastyness. Very well-balanced, ample bitterness for the style, ends dry. Medium to light bodied with spritzy carbonation.

Bottle . Pours an hazy amber/orange color with a modest white fluffy head. At first sniff I get the yeast, then I get a nose full of lemon and pepper. Kinda strange. The taste is very dry, tart, and very peppery. This is not a bad brew, but It’s not what I expect a saison to taste like.

In short: A really fucked-up dark-blond beer of some kind. All kinds of flavours that do not work together but make for an “special” beer. Very good, no. Intriguing, yes.
How: Bottle 750ml, corked. Consumed when about 1 year of age.
The look: A small white head over a cloudy dirty orange body with lots of small particles
In long: Strange musty nose with fruity sourness and a weird wild yeast component that I’d describe as lichen. Taste has a lot of elements. The beer is complex for sure, but cohesive it is not. In no particular order. Baked fruit cake, green apple, orange peels, bread, Acetaldehyde, white grapes sourness, sharp acidity. Feels really “off” yet it is also very intriguing and I had to All over the place really so I’ll stop here, the important thing anyway is that I’ve plugged in Acetaldehyde in one of my rating.

11.2 oz bottle 6/30/09 (Courtesy of Hopscotch)-Pours a cloudy amber with a small white head. Aroma of sour, funk, floral, and citrus. Taste is of the same with a bit of wood, vanilla, and slight orange. This light to medium bodied brew is nothing to write home about and a little bit bland but still drinkable.

0.75l - Fizzy liquid with a cloudy copper color, no real head, yeast mainly on nose with some underlying starch/dough. Metallic and bland on palate. Boring.

Corked and capped bottle. Pours cloudy amber with a scant white head. Sour lemon and funk nose. Light body and carbonation. There’s a bit of fruit here, but the main feature is sourness.

Bottle from lonehill. Orange with a fizzy white head. Aroma of bandaid caramel and spice. Plastic taste followed by a sweet spice taste.

Bottled, capped & corked, 750ml, from La Cave de Verdun, Verdun, France. Gold, hazed with white head. Initially I thought that this was off, the cork pulled too easily and a farmy acidic twang hit my nose. Then when I drank, there was an acidic sharpness, almost lactic. But before long things settled down, still sharp, but a myriad of other flavours came my way. This was complicated, I got the orange, but everything else was jumbled and I’m not big on complication. I dutifully finished the bottle, what a shame to put this through the rework bin, and I came out quite enjoying the experience.