raising BA

This is going to be the start of an occasional feature here on Heckasac.  There's an important cause that's near and dear to my heart-Brew Awareness.  I'm working through the Heckasac foundation to raise BA in our immediate area.  Just 50 cents a day pledged to Heckasac's Brew Awareness campaign can buy at least two, top-quality 750 ml bottles of brew for some Sacramentan in need of a serious brew education.  Here's the sample of just one of the countless letters we have received here at BA headquarters:

Dear Heckasac-

Before you offered me enrollment in your generous program I was in a sorry state.  I thought I loved brew.  I thought I knew brew.  I always drank Blue Moon-you know with the orange in it (I shudder to think of it now), and on special occasions I would head over to the Rubicon and order a Monkey Knife Fight.  Through the actions of your foundation, and your gift of two delicious craft brews a month, I have come to see the error of my ways.  You have saved my palate, and my life.

Thank You

OK, OK.  I kid.  And I will not claim to be an expert in brew, and whatever brew you like be proud of it.  Unless it's Monkey Knife Fight.  Me and smiller just thought this would be fun.  So after that backtracking, here goes:

Saison Rue-The Bruery (pictured above)

purchased at Healthy Spirits in San Francisco (currently not available in Sac area)

$12.99?

8.5% ABV

The Bruery is an interesting new craft beer maker that has been around less than two years, yet they already have a wide array of Belgium-influenced releases.  They are located in Placencia, in Orange County.  Last night we tasted their Saison Rue.  Here's how they describe it:

"Saison Rue is an unfiltered, bottle conditioned, Belgian/French-style farmhouse ale. This is a beer of subtlety and complexity, with malted rye, spicy, fruity yeast notes, biscuit-like malt backbone, and a slight citrus hop character. With age, this beer will dry out and will become more complex with rustic notes of leather and earth from the contribution of a wild yeast strain. Being a Saison, Saison Rue is ambiguous unto itself as it is a different beer when fresh and when aged. We hope you enjoy it in all of its incarnations."

So this is a beer that contains the wild yeast Brettanomyces.  It is unfiltered, so it has a kind of cloudy, apple cider appearance, and there's a yeast shot at the bottom.  Smiller's guess was that they take a cue from Orval, and pitch the Brett in at bottling.  It definitely had a taste of rye, and just a hint of the sourness that Brett imbues, but if you were to age this bottle for six months it would probably have quite a different character.  The rye would go down and the sourness would go up.  

At 8.5% it's on the strong side for a saison, which is kind of typical of the emerging "American saison" style, where we always have to go and break all the rules.  USA! USA!  I personally prefer their Saison De Lente, which is their Spring saison.  It also has Brett, and is lower in alcohol.