It's with great regret that I have to start my beer spelunking with a bad review, but a refined palate for quality beer cannot be cultivated by gingerly dancing around the truth. I popped open this 750-ml bottle of COAST RANGE BREWING CO.'s "Farmhouse Saision 7" Belgian Style Ale this weekend, and was mighty let down by the contents. It has a real piss-yellow color & that godawful smoky taste favored by lovers of "smoked" beer, whatever that is. I detected "notes" of pastrami, corn rye bread and tap water. Oh, I mean it was drinkable, but drinkable in the sense of a "sunk cost" of $3.79, if you know what I mean. Gilroy, California, from whence this hails, is perhaps not a beer hotbed - now garlic, they got garlic down -- and it's about as metaphorically far from Belgium as Flin Flon, Manitoba is from Katmandu. The reason I picked this one up to help kickstart my jouney into "beer blogging" (oh dear god help me) was its placement as one of the 2 key beers in my local beer store (Plumpjack in San Francisco's Noe Valley)'s "Beer of the Month" club this month. Figured that was worth something, but hey - who's blowing who here? I ain't joining no beer of the month club stocked with random mediocrity like this. Why, I’ll start my own! Stay tuned.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
"FARMHOUSE SAISON 7" Belgian Style Ale - review
It's with great regret that I have to start my beer spelunking with a bad review, but a refined palate for quality beer cannot be cultivated by gingerly dancing around the truth. I popped open this 750-ml bottle of COAST RANGE BREWING CO.'s "Farmhouse Saision 7" Belgian Style Ale this weekend, and was mighty let down by the contents. It has a real piss-yellow color & that godawful smoky taste favored by lovers of "smoked" beer, whatever that is. I detected "notes" of pastrami, corn rye bread and tap water. Oh, I mean it was drinkable, but drinkable in the sense of a "sunk cost" of $3.79, if you know what I mean. Gilroy, California, from whence this hails, is perhaps not a beer hotbed - now garlic, they got garlic down -- and it's about as metaphorically far from Belgium as Flin Flon, Manitoba is from Katmandu. The reason I picked this one up to help kickstart my jouney into "beer blogging" (oh dear god help me) was its placement as one of the 2 key beers in my local beer store (Plumpjack in San Francisco's Noe Valley)'s "Beer of the Month" club this month. Figured that was worth something, but hey - who's blowing who here? I ain't joining no beer of the month club stocked with random mediocrity like this. Why, I’ll start my own! Stay tuned.
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I just got snowed by this beer as well! I tried 3 of their beers - the beligian, the IPA & the porter. The belgian was definitely the worst of the 3 and while the other 2 started off pleasantly enough, I ended up not wanting to finish them. I've been going through a huge belgian phase (again) & there's something subtle but significant about the way most american breweries - even good ones - often get them wrong. A lot of times I feel like there's some "instant belgian flavor" being added! I do think that Unibroue from Quebec gets them right though.
Between your 2 blogs, you really have my number! Keep it up, Jay. Oh yeah, and get thee to an Anchor Bock soon! It's great, as you would expect from Anchor.
scott miller
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