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Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Stone, Dogfish Head, Victory Saison Du Buff


It's unfair to label this beer as a Stone beer, although the label does bear their printing style and Bill's name is signed on the description.  It's actually a collaboration between Stone, Dogfish Head, and Victory.  The idea was to make a Saison that used floral and aromatic herbs for ultimate refreshment.  It pours a light straw color with a medium head and decent retention.  Nice bubbles and the aroma is a very clean and crisp malt. It's a Saison to perfection; Michael Jackson would be proud. 

Drinking this Buff in is a huge mouthful of flavor.  The body is light and extremely even.  The grains are big bready flavors, but very light on the tongue.  They mix with German style hops that bitter the back and sides of your tongue mixing with a bit of lemon and a lot of sage.  The sage is almost overwhelming, but mixes beautifully with the hops.  I'm not getting any of the rosemary that is promised on the bottle. 

The beer has a very smooth hop finish, although has little in the way of alpha acid's pine and citrus and tastes more like orange peel and pepper.  Ultimately, these brewers were able to achieve exactly what they set out for, a refreshing kickass Saison.  Drinkability is off the charts, and the beer is super refreshing and crisp.  My personal preference would be to have some more American hops in there to get a nicer piney finish, but the beer is still great as is.

Saison Du Buff: ****

2 comments:

Sean Inman said...

I’ve had the Stone version and the Victory version and both are really amped up herb gardens in a glass. They would be perfect on a summer day. But I am still at a loss as to what would go with them, food-wise.

brews_clues said...

Yeah, that's a great question. Because of the heavy Sage I'd suggest something with squash or pumpkin, although those are Winter vegetables and this is definitely a Summer beer. How about a big old chunk of focaccia bread?