Southern Tier Cherry Saison

Brewed by Southern Tier Brewing Company
Style: Saison
Lakewood, New York USA

pours a cloudy yellow. aroma is saison like: earthy malt and yeast, black cherry, herbal hop. Flavour is yeasty medium malt, grassy hop, light cherry, and some lingering alc. Not a lot of oak coming through for me though.

(Draught) Pours a hazy golden body with a small white head. Aroma of herbs, florals, biscuit, citrus, and black cherry skins. Flavor of hops (grassy, floral, herbal), yeast, and light cherry.

A Mes rate: bottle from Spuyten Duyvil.
Dark golden colour with an impressive white head. Gorgeous aroma with very very slight cherry and tangerine hops accenting a superb base saison with a really good earthy character and some slight oak showing. The flavour is very Belgian indeed. Sharply yeasty, some honey like notes and again some very slight cherry. The cherry actually ends up giving it a slight medicinal feel. Slightly too much alcohol showing. Not bad but the promise of the nose was never delivered.

22oz. pours a golden with a slight pink hue with a small creamy white head. aroma is earthy with a hint of citrus and tartness. mouthful is a bit creamy. flavors are earthy with some spice and oak eeking out. There is a bitter finnish that lingers a bit. did not find any cherry and would not do as a dessert. enjoyable none the less.

Bottle and served in Duval snifter: Straw hue with a small frothy head and some lace. The aroma has notes of light spices, herbal hops, cornbread, cherry pits (but not cherry flesh), oak, and a bit phenolic. The taste is syrupy soft and some weak hop bitterness with a layer of grainy malt. No notice of cherry but some grapefruit. Weird for sure, no cherry and not a Saison either. The mouth feel is soft and boring, medicinal on the finish. Arggh, should have known better. A waste of monies.

Bomber. Pour is a rather fizz-less gold with a fair bit of haze to it. Aromas are kind of funky with a bit of yeast and citrus. I couldn’t pick up cherry anywhere... nose or flavor... flavors are basically grassy, spicy, woody, malt with a little lemon and not much interesting going on. I gotta say that this is disappointing...

Bottle. Hazy yellow with a decent white head. Spicy yeast aroma with some very subtle REAL cherry which is a lot better than some overdone maraschino crap. Spicy sweet and smooth on the tongue. Definitely a dessert beer.

22 oz bomber. Pours to a hazy, golden color, with a tight, white head, that fades, and a moderate carbonation. The nose on this beer has just a faint hint of cherry sourness, paired with light oaky aromas, citrus, touchs of spicy yeast and citrus hops. The palate is firm, with some good pale malt flavor, paired some spicy yeast, and flavors of oak. No cherry flavor can be detected on the palate. This beer finishes with more pale malt, and yeast up front, then ends with some citrus hop bitterness and oak sourness that lingers. A well made, tasty beer, but pretty dissapointing for a beer billed as a Cherry Saison. Where is the cherry? I was only able to get a trace of cherry sourness in the nose. I think the oak aging masked/overpowered any cherry character this beer might have had. First real "swing and a miss" beer I have had from Southern Tier. A real let down for me.