Southampton Cuvee des Fleurs

Brewed by Southampton Publick House
Style: Saison
Southampton, New York USA

2004 bottle that was at the 2006 Dark Lord release party. The beer pours to a nice golden body with a milken white head. The aroma is nice. Floral hops that really smell nice. The hop flavor is also really good. Nicely floral, smooth taste, nice palate. Sweet taste as well. VERY GOOD!

From Mesa Gathering October 07. Yeasty aroma and sour. Orange color. Pepper and sour flavor. Beer was good. I know not much but may of bben the start of the yeast and alcohol infection I got that afternoon.

Hazy orange coloured body with a nice thin white head. Aroma of coriander seed, curacao, wheat and butterscotch. Medium-bodied; Floral taste with coriander seed and wheat most prevalent. Aftertaste of curacao, sugars and a floral herbiness. Overall, a nice beer with a good flavour all-around. Many thanks to eyedrinkale for bringing this nice beer! I sampled this 75 cL bottle at the November RB party at Founder’s in Alexandria, Virginia on 20-November-2004.

2005 750ml bottle via trade with notalush - Thanks Brandon! - Pours cloudy golden with an enormous white bubbly head that blew out as soon as the cork was popped and laced the sides of the tulip in sheets. Aroma is like a spring day and delightfully aromatic. Notes of yeast, but also some lavender and freshly mown grass, clover, and honey. Flavor is much more malty though. Definite sweet malts, a touch of honey and all of those floral notes blend with the grassy hops. Lots of fresh baked bread flavor there too and just a touch of spice on the tip of the tongue. Amazingly carbonated with bubbles rising to the top and creating that huge head but it almost seems to disappear by the end of the bottle. This is incredibly intriguing and extremely tasty brew. Perfect for a beautiful spring day!

Tap, DBA. They had just tapped this earlier in the day (assumedly to coincide with the Daze of the Devil Festival at Hop Devil). Cloudy honey-yellow appearance; white head with great retention. Awesome floral aroma, with ginger and spice and yeast. Full, chewy mouthfeel: plenty of yeast, vibrant carbonation; floral dominated, with citrus hops and spice. Long, yeasty and citrus finish. The best saison I’ve had, and my favorite beer of the weekend.

2005 bottle vintage, Sampled January 2006
This is an absolutely ridiculously carbonated beer. I poured three tulip glasses of beer full to the brim and I was only able to pour about a 1/3rd of the bottle. The little tiny bit of beer at the bottom of my tulip is brilliantly clear, and an orangish-copper color. The head, as expected is voluminous, and slowly recedes in a frothy, collapsed rocky surface. The aroma is quite intriguing. It is much more noticeably than I was expecting; it is immediately noticeable as I am pouring the beer. It smells quite sweet and honey-like, but definitely a floral honey. As I go in for a deeper draught of the aroma, I get a slight astringent note that one would typically associate with wild flowers, but is also quite a typical characteristic of Belgian yeast. The aroma has notes that remind me of all sorts of things; I get notes of sweet-ginger, pepper, a spicy note that is similar to the fruity spicy note in a Habanero chile. Holy mackerel, the aroma is just absolutely fantastic, I can’t even describe everything that is going on, it is just awesome and needs to be experienced. I suppose I should get around to taking a sip of this heavenly aromatic brew.

The taste is quite sweet up front, in fact it is also devoid of carbonation; it was so explosively carbonated at first that almost all of the carbonation has disappeared. The description of honey is definitely an apt one for the taste as well. This sweetness is balanced by an astringent, sharp, bitter, almost weedy note that is much more appealing than I have described. The note definitely takes the place of hop-bitterness, but is quite a bit different. The astringent, bitter note lingers for quite some time in the mouth after the beer is gone. This in many ways reminds me of a Chinese dessert consisting of an unrefined-sugar sweetened, ginger infused water that is used to flavor a super soft, silken tofu; it is quite good. There is something of a green vegetal character here; almost like a red/yellow bell pepper, but better.

I am really enjoying this beer. If I had to complain I would say that this could really use some carbonation to it; the initial over-carbonation robbed this beer of any residual carbonation. Perhaps my next pour will have a bit more CO2. Ah yes, my second pour from the bottle is quite well carbonated, in fact almost a bit overly so. This high level of carbonation actually cuts the sweetness a bit, which is actually good. This beer is just getting better; the second pour is a bit more yeasty as well, which adds a grounded earthy note, as well as the typically bready-yeasty note. The carbonation also accentuates a sharp, spicy note that almost has some heat to it.

This beer is incredibly interesting, and quite tasty. I highly recommend this beer if you can get some, and if you can’t try harder because it is worth it. I really like how the various floral components balance in this beer; the honey sweet character is well balanced by the harder floral notes. This beer is certainly all about the flowers though: the yeast and malt character serve to perfectly accentuate the floral flavors. The malt helps to convey the honey-sweet nectar notes and the yeast helps to accentuate the spicy floral characteristics.

GABF ’09.
Pours a cloudy, thin yellow with an aroma of rosy hops. Flavor is mosquito spray (says Todd) and sweat. Watery mouthfeel. .kcuY

Bottle from beastiefan2k, shared w/ slob and Robert at SL. The pour was golden in color with only slight haziness, steady and lively carbonation. Aroma was floral w/ spices also detectable. The flavor was a little overdone on the floral side for my highest liking, dandelions standing out perhaps the most, spicey (almost a ginger-like character to which I’m sensitive), slight sour-citrusey, white grapes, honey, and only faint yeast elements. More phenolic peppery flavors would have been quite nice and added some depth. Mouthfeel was lively carbonated, a little light on the body for a saison. Thanks much, Eugene, a fun one! Re-rated in 7/08 at SL, 4/08 bottling, shared by Robert. Very similar experience, although the malt base was not nearly as inspiring as before with the floral and spicey side over-running the product. In particular, ginger and cinnamon seemed to jump out of this bottle at us like a holiday ale or something. The chamomile is what I think gives me a ginger-cinnamon impression, but nevertheless, it was a bit over the top. As noted before, more phenolic notes, and this time more malt character, both would have made this quite stellar. Prior rating numbers stand, especially since this one may have been a hand-bottling and some of the malt character may have been lost due to that? Thanks, Robert, for sharing this one too!