Troll Saison Dau

Brewed by Birrificio Troll
Style: Saison
Vernante, Italy

My Bottom Line:
This highly spicy Saison benefits from citrusy undertones to assuage the gingerbread dessert perfume and increase drinkability.

Further Personal Perceptions:
-A veil of foam tops the hazy blond.
-The Troll brewer is an herborist. That explains the concept behind a lot of their beers!
-The body is very light (this is 3.9% abv after all), which is kind of a strange choice for those dessert spice leanings.
-The flavors are not as expressive as the aroma had let on.
-This beer is also brewed with a strange moss which is responsible for part of its unique personality.
-Base cereal flavors are quite polite.
-A subtle hop bitterness clinches each sip.

On tap at Bir&Fud, Rome.

Bottle@GBBF2008. Golden colour, mediumsized white head. aroma is spices, tomatosauce, some juniper and mildly earthy. Flavour is lots of juniper, spices, some ginger and mild fruity hops.

[1477-20080601] Bottle. Yew pine or juniper sap aroma with needles and resin notes mixed in along with weird dusty flowers (like at a dried flower store). Slightly hazy, orange brown body with a quick bubbly off-white head. Flavour is resiny and buttery, like sucking on a fresh evergreen sapling. Watery medium body. Interesting.
(4T @ Mondial; Montreal, QC)

Bottle at GBBF ’08. Many thanks to Christian for this reminder that there is for us North Europeans an undiscovered world of beer south of the Alps. Gold. Positively startling tomato ketchup aroma. Peppery cucumber taste thrown into focus by a sour sparkle. Thanks to oh6gdx for the identification of juniper in the flavour. Altogether an odd and rather appealing beer.

75cl bottle from Willow Bend Liquors (Tampa, FL). Pours a dark hazy golden color with a one finger white head that settles rapidly leaving little lacing on the glass. Aroma is spicy and flowery with notes of burnt popcorn, pine, hint of sweet malt. Flavor is somewhat similar with notes of malt, spice, and yeast. Somewhat watery mouthfeel with a quick finish. Not as much flavor as we had hoped.

Hacy golden with tiny white head. Sweet and fruity aroma with discrete hoppy an citric notes. Flavor likewise with loads of spices.

Had on tap at Bir & Fud on July 6. Pours amber gold with a minimal head. Aroma of spice with minor notes of funk., Taste is citrus, a little funk, and a lot of spice. Finish also spice. Interesting beer.

In short: A weird musty, spicy and dry Belgian Blond Ale of some kind. Light but kind of fun.
How: Sample at Mondial de la Bière 2008
The look: Cloudy golden Blonde body with almost no head
In long: Pleasant and surprisingly strong wild fruity nose of tangerines on a horse blanket. Flavour and mouthfeel is kind of weird, like oily and dusty at the same time. Rather yeasty, lots of dust, lemon skins, some “yellow” flowers, tangerines, strong unsettling unidentified dry herb/spice sensation, apricots in the finish. Something here reminded me of some of the absinth beer I’ve had. Body was pretty slim. A tough one to judge from a 5oz sample, I’ll need to drink at least a full bottle to really make up my mind about it. One thing for sure despite its below 4% abv this is not boring beer. Whether an annoying forum poster or a Saison beer, a Troll sure ain’t classy but it can be entertaining.