Recently in Sante Adairius Category

Four Legs Good

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The name of this beer harkens back to George Orwell's Animal Farm, where the phrase "Four legs good, two legs bad." is used as propaganda that initially helps clarify the animals' goal to be free of human oppression, but which eventually devolves into a meaningless sound bleated by the sheep ("two legs baa-d") that only serves to shut down dissent. As the novel progresses and the needs of the leadership change, the chant is modified to the ironic "Four legs good, two legs better", which sounds similar but obviously means the opposite. Such reversals might sound silly, but this sort of thing happens all the time, even in science. For example, over-the-counter nasal docongestant sprays are effective... for about 3 days. After that, the user's continuing stuffiness and congestion are actually caused by the product itself, something called a rebound congestion.

But I digress. I'm not positive why Sante Adairius named a beer after this infamous quote, but their blurb on the bottle mentions a three-legged dog, so one must assume that there is a rising tide of three-legged dogs plotting revolution in Capitola, California. And I, for one, welcome our new doggo overlords and would like to remind them that as a trusted blogging personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground bone mines.

And I'm digressing again. The beer itself is labeled a "Belgian-style blonde Quad" (a "made-up beer style") that is fermented in oak puncheons then aged for long periods in oak foudres. As befits the style-defying description, this was originally part of Sante Adairius's 16e series of weird one-offs, but it appears to have graduated to a regular offering. Four Legs Good, three legs better?

Sante Adairius Rustic Ales Four Legs Good

Sante Adairius Rustic Ales Four Legs Good - Pours a golden yellow color with a finger of white, bubbly head that sticks around for a bit. Smells nice, fruity and oaky, a little spice in the background. Taste is sweet and spicy, vinous fruit, with oak emerging quickly, followed by some tartness. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, well carbonated but a little sticky, plenty of booze. Overall, this is one damn fine beer, complex and tasty. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 9.9% ABV bottled (750 ml). Drank out of a flute glass on 6/2/17. Batch 2.

Fabulous stuff, as always. I got a small taste of a new(ish) 16e beer called Feeling Ursine (a tart barrel aged brown) that was decent, and I've got another SARA beer on its way. Certainly one of my favorite breweries to snag something from these days...

Sante Adairius Saison Bernice

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When I was in college, my friends and I were on the Campus Activities Team (I ran the movie program, natch) and we had this (in retrospect) utterly bizarre habit of designating office supplies with old-people names. Of particular note were tape dispensers named Phyllis and Gertrude. I don't think we had anything named Bernice, but we certainly should have. I'm... glad I was able to write about this, and I know you are too.

I'll let eponymous owner Adair Paterno describe this Brett dosed saison in more detail: "I think that Saison Bernice is the purest expression of what our house culture can do to a base saison, specifically, our house saison, Anais, without oak and/or a significant amount of aging time." Presumably they named it after someone important in their lives, but I'd like to think that somewhere at the SARA headquarters there's a tape dispenser with the name Bernice scrawled on the side in whiteout. Let's dig in:

Sante Adairius Saison Bernice

Sante Adairius Rustic Ales Saison Bernice - Pours a bright, luminous yellow color with a finger of white head. Smells wonderful, nice earthy funk component, especially as it warms up, with lots of vinous fruit, lemons, tangerines, nectarines, you know, fruit type stuff. We get real technical here at Kaedrin, get used to it. Taste hits those same elements, a little more in the way of earthy funk here, but it's all brightened up by those notes of juicy fruit, lemony tartness creeping in towards the finish. Mouthfeel is crisp, light, and utterly quaffable, very refreshing and croosh. Overall, this is a fabulous saison in the Logsdon Seizoen Bretta mold, maybe even a little more nimble; definitely funky, complex, juicy, and delicious. A

Beer Nerd Details: 6.5% ABV bottled (750 ml). Drank out of a flute glass on 5/6/16.

Drinking SARA beers is always a pleasure. Many thanks to the hibernating blogger Jay from BeerSamizdat for sending this one my way. Fortunately, there is another SARA beer in the pipeline, so look for a review in the near future...

Sante Adairius Jose Pimiento

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In Brew Like a Monk, Stan Hieronymus relates an anecdote from Michael Jackson (the beer critic, not the pop star):

In one of the many stories he likes to tell about German, English and Belgian brewers, Michael Jackson first asks a German how beer is made. "Pils malt, Czech hops," the brewer replies. Then Jackson asks the German brewer down the road the same question. "It's the same as Fritz said. That's how you make a Pilsener, that's what we learn in school."

After getting a different answer from a British brewer, Jackson turns to a Belgian brewer. "First of all, you take one ton of bat's droppings. Then you add a black witch," the Belgian answers. "The brewer down the road uses a white witch." Jackson concludes with the lesson: "Belgium is a nation of tremendous individualists."

The notion of beer "styles" is so ingrained in our current beer culture that it's hard to imagine coming to it fresh, the way Jackson was doing 40 or so years ago. It's faintly amazing that we ended up with something even remotely workable, especially considering the tremendous individualism of Belgian beer.

Enter Sante Adairius' 16e series of one-off beers. It's a nod to Tim Clifford's time as a homebrewer, as he "gained a lot of notoriety" in competitions, especially with beers in BJCP Category 16e, a nubulous "catch-all" category of Belgian beer used to capture all those weird bat dropping and witch based ales and whatnot. Basically, it's Sante Adairius' line of experimental and weird beers that defy categorization.

This particular entry is called Jose Pimiento. I don't know who that is or why they named this beer after him, but Jose presumably enjoys chile peppers, because this is a sour blonde ale aged in barrels with dried chile peppers. This is... not a combo you're likely to see again, and is vaguely terrifying, but it appears they used a gentle touch with the chiles, as it adds complexity and flavor without overwhelming...

Sante Adairius Jose Pimiento

Sante Adairius Rustic Ales 16e Jose Pimiento - Pours a very pale, straw yellow color with a finger of white head that sticks around a bit. Smells of vinous fruit and oak, funky but very bright. If you do the equivalent of squinting with your nose, you can maybe, kinda, sorta find the pepper, but it's not really a prominent aroma at all. Taste starts off with those vinous fruit flavors up front, lactic sourness emerging quickly and lasting through the taste, and that spicy chile pepper comes out a bit more here, but it's still shy and introverted (like me!), and as a result, it adds complexity without overwhelming anything. It reminds me of the old Belgian brewing adage of spice - if it's identifiable, you've done it wrong. If I didn't know this involved peppers, I might note something, but I doubt I'd pinpoint it as dried chile peppers. Mouthfeel is well carbonated up front, but quickly falling off into a more sticky finish, some bright acidity here, and yes, faint hints of chile heat. Overall, this is a bit odd, but still another winner from Sante Adairius. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 7% ABV bottled (750 ml). Drank out of a flute glass on 11/13/15.

Another winner from SARA! Many thanks to Jay from BeerSamizdat for sending it my way. Keep them coming, Jay, I need to get my hands on moar SARA!

Sante Adairius Cask 200

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I don't know about casks 1-199, but I think Sante Adairius may have stumbled on to something with numero 200. In reality, they only have one of these (and you can see it in the background sometimes). It's a 660 gallon oval cask that they use in Solera-like fashion for a funky saison. Each time they package a portion of its contents, fresh beer is added back to Cask 200, thus mixing with the old beer and "learning" how to ferment and be like its aged brethren. As such, the average age of any packaged beer is going to be higher than previous bottlings and the finished product will vary from batch to batch. Unfortunately, I have no idea which batch I'm drinking here (I suspect batch #2), but that doesn't really matter because this is fantastic stuff.

Solera style beer production isn't particularly common here in the beer world, but in my limited experience (with, for example, The Bruery's Anniversary beers and Tired Hands' Darwin series), this is a unique way to approach it. Many thanks to Jay from the sadly now defunct Beer Samizdat blog for sending a bottle my way:

Sante Adairius Cask 200

Sante Adairius Cask 200 - Pours a cloudy straw yellow color with a finger of white head and good retention. Smells amazing, hugely funky, lots of musty Brett, some fruity aromas, and a very nice oak character. Taste is sweet, tangy with that fruity Brett funk, vinous notes, a big tart sourness yielding quickly to that oak character, which lasts though the finish. Mouthfeel is well carbonated, crisp, and refreshing. Light bodied, with some acidity and tannins. Overall, this is another amazing beer from Sante Adairius. A

Beer Nerd Details: 6.5% ABV bottled (750 ml capped). Drank out of a flute glass on 2/1/14. Batch 2?

So Sante Adairius is 2 for 2 here at Kaedrin, with 2 solid A grade beers. It's almost enough to plan a trip to Capitola, CA and visit them first hand. At the very least, I'll have to make arrangements to secure more of their beer!

Sante Adairius Love's Armor

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It used to be that a new brewery would have to establish their bona fides for a few years, pushing out old standards like porters and pale ales, establishing a base on blandness, and only then rocking the world with something completely bonkers. In the parlance, you've got to earn your bullshit. But there's something about the current beer craze has lead to new, often tiny breweries popping up and immediately dropping bombs on unsuspecting beer nerds. For example, Hill Farmstead started putting out amazing beers way back in... 2010. Earlier this year, they're voted best brewery in the world. I suspect the same honor will be up for grabs from any number of new, idiosyncratic brewers that seem to be sprouting up at an amazing rate.

Heck, we've already covered two such candidates this week alone (not to mention recent fantastic offerings from Pipeworks, Half Acre, my beloved hometown wizards Tired Hands, and many others) and now we hit our third of the week: Sante Adairius Rustic Ales (aka SARA) has been making small batches of mind blowing beer in the small coastal town of Capitola, California for a year or so, but they somehow managed to establish an amazing reputation before they even opened. I've been following along on Jay's blog, Beer Samizdat, for a while now, aching to get a chance to try anything from this brewery. When we put together a quick trade back in August, I was wondering if he'd be able to find some bottles (they're apparently quite rare and released on unpredictable schedules) and was overjoyed to see not just one, but two offerings in my haul. Many thanks to Jay for being such a great American and snapping these up for me.

This first taste is a blend of barrel aged sour beers, one a dark saison they call Farmhouse Noir and the other a robust rye porter called Chavez. Love's Armor has proven itself to be quite formidable, wreaking major havoc with my THAC0...

Sante Adairius Loves Armor

Sante Adairius Rustic Ales Love's Armor - Pours a deep dark brown color with a finger of khaki head. Smells full of twangy funk, with an almost chocolate covered cherry sorta aroma that is beautiful. Sourness hits in the taste right up front, sour cherries, yielding to some chocolate malt, maybe even some roast in the middle, then heading back to sourtown for the finish. Nice leathery Brett funk, maybe tobacco, matched with a hint of oak too. Really complex, I keep picking out new subtleties as I drink, but also well balanced. Mouthfeel is well carbonated, not quite full bodied, but definitely more here than, say, a flanders red. Overall, I feel like I've been saying this a lot lately, but this is superb! An excellent, non-standard sour. A

Beer Nerd Details: 8.1% ABV bottled (750 ml capped). Drank out of a flute on 9/20/13.

Amazing first impression here, and I'm supes excited for that next bottle... and will need to start begging Jay for more almost immediately.

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Hi, my name is Mark, and I like beer.

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This page is an archive of recent entries in the Sante Adairius category.

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