Grassroots Brother Soigné

Grassroots is kinda like the collaborative arm of Hill Farmstead, so it’s always surprising that these beers don’t command more attention. Some of them you’ll even find sitting on a shelf! The horror! In general, they’re up to par with Hill Farmstead’s “regular” farmhouse offerings, but then, I guess that’s not what gets people amped up about them either. Not that I’m complaining, the more people who sleep on saisons, the more saisons for me.

Mr. Burns the beer nerd, sleeping on Grassroots saisons

This is a collaboration with Luc Bim Lafontaine (formerly of Dieu du Ciel!, now toiling away in Japan or something) and it’s a saison brewed with Lime and Blood Orange (and possibly, depending on who you ask, hibiscus). Sounds good to me. So let’s start a Grassroots campaign to drink more saisons:

Grassroots Brother Soigné

Grassroots Brother Soigné – Pours a clear orange color with an almost pinkish hue and a finger of white head. Smells of tart fruit, citrus zest, and some farmhouse yeast esters, very nice nose. Taste starts sweet, hits some spicy saison notes, then comes some tart fruit, don’t know that I’d have picked lime out blind, but it’s there, and some orange too, not quite sour but headed in that direction. Mouthfeel is well carbonated, lower-medium bodied, lightly acidic, and relatively dry. The 750 went down quicker than I thought it would, and I was left here wondering if someone snuck into my house and poured themselves a glass or something stupid like that. Overall, a nice estery saison number, not going to light the world on fire, but well worth the stretch. Somewhere in the B+ to A- continuum. It’s getting hard to rate this stuff.

Beer Nerd Details: 5% ABV bottled (750 ml). Drank out of a tulip glass on 8/1/15. Bottled 04/16/2015.

I’ve got a couple more bottles of this in the cellar, and I’m told it cellars well, which would be exciting… if I can manage to not drink them all in the next few months. Check the line in Vegas to see where that’s at these days, but it’s not a particularly safe bet.

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