Out of the Bottle: Little Farmhouse on the Plains

The beer from my Dark Saison project is finally finished bottle conditioning. Time to pour a glass and see how it came out. The Final Gravity came in at a very low 1.004, which results in a 5.8% ABV. That's a bit stronger than the 5.4% I was expecting,

Going into the glass, the beer is rather pretty. As you can see from the picture, it has a deep garnet tone and nice clarity against the early evening sun. The head is rocky, firm and leaves decent lacing behind. At this early stage of development, the Saison yeast is really out front with a lot of clove and sourdough bread aromas. I'm guessing that part of it can be attributed to the insane temperatures here the last few days. The beer has been exposed to temps in excess of 80 degrees. Behold the downside to no basement and minimal A/C.

A nice heavily toasted bread scent sits in the back of all the yeast notes. I'm guessing that with age, the yeast will settle down and the bread aromas will come through more. When I tried this beer at bottling time, there was a fair amount of baking chocolate in the flavor. With the carbonation in place, it has subsided a bit. Letting the beer warm; however, brings it back. There's also an ever so subtle plum sweetness. Bitterness is just high enough and has a pepper bite. The beer gets a touch astringent late. If I do this one over, I'll cut back on the Pale Chocolate malt to reduce it. Other than that, I'm pretty happy.

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