Appearance: 4/5. Probably a bit too hazy for the style. I love the color though. It screams summer beer. The beer is a very cloudy light hay color. Has a lemon cream pie kind of look going on. Cant see through the beer at all (fruit pectin?) Big fluffy white head as it pours out of the tap as it settles out leaving a half inch to quarter inch head. It leaves a small amount of lacing on the glass as you drink it.
Smell: 2/5. Does not smell like a saison and I can barley smell any fruit (apricots). It has a hint of fruit in nose. Mostly a white wine/grape juice smell with a heavy dose of grass-like hop smell.
Taste: 3/5. Unique to say the least. Not like any other saison I have had. Grassy/Hay hop flavor dominates. The wine and dry grape flavor are there too. A tiny bit of fruit comes in at the very beginning but is gone before you know it was really there. If I did not tell you it was brewed with apricots you would probably never guess it.
Mouthfeel: 5/5. For the style this is right on target. Very light and refreshing once you get past the bitter grassy hops. Very dry. Beer ended up at 1.004!
Overall: 2.5/5. I expected more from this beer. To be fair this beer is still really, really young. I much prefer a straight saision vs a super hoppy, fruited version like this one. Hopefully with some time this beer ages into a more refined version of it self. Maybe as the hop flavors die down you will get some more subtle flavors coming through. I also don't know if you would say this is a saison if you had it without know what it was. Little, to no funk going on. This is my first time using White Labs French Saison. Maybe their strain is not nearly as saison-like as the Wyeast version.
If I were to brew again I would not add the fruit. The hops dominate. Or, I would not dry hop this beer at all. Let the 60 minute addition and the flame out hops be the only hops in the beer and then finish with the fruit. I also would go back to Wyeast vs White Labs for the French Saison strain. Maybe the hops are covering up the traditional saison flavors but right now I am a bit let down how "normal" and clean this beer tastes.
If I were to really rethink the recipe as a whole I would just rebrew my previous saison and add apricots to that beer as it was originally constructed.
I learned a lot about the New Zealand hops on this beer. The packaging for Nelson Sauvigon said "White wine like flavors". Boy oh boy are they right with that one!
If this beer ages into something different I will update the post. Until then. Get ready for my next fruited beer - Mango Trois IPA. Should post about this in a week or so.
Oh yeah... the tap is working pretty well!
UPDATE:
Two weeks later and this beer has really smoothed out and started to come together. This just goes to show you that just because you can keg a beer and drink it two days after your fermentation schedule does not mean you should. Time is still your friend for some of these beers.
The subtle fruit flavor is a bit more intense and the super grassy hop flavor has somewhat mellowed out as well. Brings everything back into balance.
I would bump this up to a pretty solid beer and give the smell another quarter point to give it 2.25 (still zero saison smell). Taste would get another half point for the balance it is showing but I am still bummed that no real saison character is showing. 3.5.
Overall would get another half point for everything outlined above. Unless time will reveal some of that traditional saision character, this beer is probably going to max out here. There is some "Brett" trois in this beer so there is still a chance it could turn it into something. I just don't think the keg will last that long.
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