A beer for a bear looking man

Riverstone’s 10th birthday, made by one of New Zealand’s most exciting new breweries.

Its spiced character is from the yeast blend.

A specially commissioned Saison to commemorate Riverstone’s 10th year of phenomenal food… and brilliant beer!

Organic Pilsner malt, oats, wheat & sugar, Maize, hops, water & two yeast strains.

We loosely based this beer on the 4 grain Wipers Times we drank in Ieper. Spiced funky character is purely from the yeast blend.

Likely to be lively- pour with care!

Unfiltered, unpasteurised and Bottle Conditioned for full flavour. Silver medal, AIBA 2017. Label art: Donna Demente

So, What could possibly go wrong? Well what a shambles of a beer. To say over-carbonated would be an understatement, this had more fizz than in most nay beer I’ve ever had. Alarming over-spillage and waste was avoided by the lovely MrsPhil and a bunch of paper towels. I saved a goodly bit of it though because I’ve paid good money and beer don’t get away from me that easy.

From all that carbonation escape I can tell that it has a lovely aroma, and when I confident enough to pout it I got a glorious hazy yet bright orange beer with a lovely bright white head. It’s as pretty as a picture.

The aroma is a yeasty dust farmhouse thing, that is really nice.

The taste is a beer that is light, lemony with plenty of carbonation, and that is  very tasty and even to drink. It starts nicely and just carries on being nice. It really is.

I’m a fan of the Farmhouse/Saison style beers and this is one that is rather a bit a good at what I think it should be like.

I’m particularly a fan of the way that the mustiness that you could reasonably expect is carried in amongst that lemony taste, it’s unusual and it’s also quite well balanced because it’s something you notice not something that you begin to focus on.

As a beer then this is memorable and I’d be happy to hunt another one up.

The pdubyah-o-meter rates this as 9 of its things from the thing. Well it’s much closer to a 9 than an 8, and although it could have been a disaster with the oar-carbonation thing, it wasn’t and the resulting beer is really very nice, good looking, great taste, leading with lemon, and very satisfying and refreshing

The double dip review

• Where did I get it? Liquorland, this time the Newmarket store.
• Am I enjoying it?  I am it really is very good.
• Would I have another? Yes, sooner than later I hope.
• Would I share with a friend on a porch and set the world to rights? The style is quite polarising I think, worse than sours in that respect, although they are not that far apart on the taste scale. This would be a lovely beer to share and enjoy with fans of Pilsners, Sours and definitely Farmouse beers,

Music for this:  ”Blunderbuss by Jack White on the Spotify player

Blunderbuss was the debut solo album by Jack White. It was released through digital download on April 20, 2012

Saison / Farmhouse / Grisette