Six by Upright

Six. Saison. Upright Brewing. Portland, Oregon.

Winter 2010/11.

My review on RateBeer:

3.4 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 6/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 14/20
AHTOH (54) - San Diego, USA - MAR 15, 2011

750 mL bottle. Poured into Duvel tulip.

APPEARANCE: Pours deep amber copper with a ruby hue. Hazy. Huge creamy head is 3+ fingers, light beige, and has lengthy retention. Head settles in a rocky fashion and leaves some patches of lacing. Noticeably rapid carbonation trail rising from center of bottom of glass.

AROMA: Tart red fruit (pomegranate, raspberry, and cherry). Sour. Saison yeast. Wet dead leaves (ie, rainy Fall day). Tree-like earthiness; similar to a woody aroma. Faint peppery spice. Some light chalkiness. Extremely faint vanilla bean/white chocolate. The chocolate and caramel aromas described on bottle do come out as it warms up a bit, though only subtly - even then, they are largely masked by the overall tartness.

TASTE: Tart with some tart bitterness. Tangy. Quite puckering. Subtle stone-like earthiness. Tart red fruit, primarily pomegranate; as well as some subtle cherry. Taste is like eating pomegranate and then once the fruit is eaten off the seed, chewing the seed to get a lengthy bitter finish. Some faint vanilla as well as even more subtle wood on back of palate. Faint metallic taste on finish. Finish is more tart bitterness. Have to work quite hard to discern chocolate and caramel notes on palate – they appear on back of palate when it warms up a bit; even then, are largely masked by overall tartness and bitterness.

MOUTH FEEL: Nice carbonation. Medium bodied. Quite smooth for such a puckering beer. Fairly dry.

OVERALL: Primarily tart and bitter. Much more tart than expected. Ok, though expected more from this beer; in particular, expected more saison-like qualities. Unable to pick out much of the rye characteristics in the taste behind all the tartness. Rustic. Would pair well with hard cheeses, though unlikely that would want to pair this with charcuterie or cooked red meat.