Frabjous Wild Cherry Saison

Hi All,

I returned from a trip to Southern Italy yesterday. During the trip i was lucky enough to stumble upon a bar called 'John Martin's' in Brindisi. A great little pub with absolutely atrocious slow and unsmiling bar staff and a couple of beer coolers brim full with Belgian and German beer! I took the lads i was with on a short circuit beer tour of both these countries then had the arrogance(fueled by Scheider Weisse) to get my beer choosing hat on and start picking beer for people. Luckily nobody was hurt during this experiment and i can proudly state that there are two Canadian and four Scotsmen who now know a bit more about beer and may choose differently when at the bar! My personal favourites were La Chouffe Blonde and Bruin served in 750ml wire caged corked bottles and also Pauwel Kwak served in the same way which simply blew me away.

http://www.achouffe.be/en

http://www.beersofeurope.co.uk/acatalog/Beers_of_Europe__Pauwel_Kwak_122.html

The point of this waffle is that my pallete was accustomed to some heavy duty Belgian beer goodness when i arrived home yesterday. I was in an excellent position to judge my Wild Cherry Sasion(completely impartial of course) :). It totally surprised me by being a Beautiful beer! Its very dry but still manages to retain a good balancing mouthfeel. The Brett C is present with a nice tropical flavour and odour. Absolutely zero hop presence, its all thirst quenching fruity tartness and a beautiful pink colour with a wee cherry kick. Carbonation is not as high as i hoped for and clarity is affected by a chill haze.

The difficulty of being a brewers wife!

If this beer had been in John Martin's i'd have been buying it alongside the Kwak and i genuinely didn't expect to get such a good result with an experimental beer. I am off to Saudi Arabia on Friday so no beer for a month from then onwards. There is a definete benefit to making more complicated multi layered beers but at 6.6%ABV its not a session beer! :)

Thanks to all who've been reading the blog. Hope you are drinking good beer where ever you are. Hi in particular to Lithuania and Croatia and also Finland and Sweden. Cheers for assisting the blog past 7,000 views.