Mystic Brewery Sauvignon Blanc Barrel Fermented Saison [Review]
A little while ago, we were over at Mystic Brewery, one of Massachusetts’ newest breweries, in Chelsea, MA. Their whole style is to be a Belgian-style farmhouse brewery headed up by a man who plans to use 21st century technology to bring us back to these roots, MIT Ph.D. Bryan Greenhagen. We’ll have a full profile on the brewery and an interview with Bryan soon, but he shared with us a beer that I couldn’t wait to tell all you craft beer drinkers about.
At the brewery we noticed a whole mess of barrels that had blow-off tubes coming out of each, all bubbling away...almost as if they were fermenting beer in those barrels, not just aging it. Well it turns out that they were, in fact, fermenting beer in there and the first batch was already bottled and ready to drink! (Editor’s Note: Barrel aged beer is normally fermented in large stainless steel vessels and then, once fermentation is complete, transferred to barrels where it ages to gain some of the barrel flavor. Barrel fermentation is different because, as the beer ferments, it warms up and cools down, causing the barrels to expand and contract which gives the beer a different, fuller barrel flavor.) Bryan had a bottle of their barrel fermented Saison chilled that we popped open and it was incredible! Here’s the story of that brew...
This version of Mystic Brewery’s Saison pours a murky copper color with a constant streaming of champagne-like bubbles from the bottom to the top. With even a gentle pour, you get a huge, pillowy cloud-colored head that settles to a dense, creamy, thick foam.
The first thing you smell when you open this brew is the influence of the sauvignon blanc barrels. As soon as you hear that loud “pop!” of the cork, you get a whiff of winey, sharp fruitiness. The sauvignon blanc barrel characteristics and those of the beer have melded together such that you can’t tell where the wine stops and the aroma of the beer begins. All in all, it smells great and is an awesome example of innovation happening in the craft beer world with barrel aging!
While it smells extremely wine-like, there is no question when you taste this that’s it’s a beer, and a very rustic Belgian-style Saison at that! The yeast characteristics from Mystic’s Saison yeast are front and center and you definitely get the malt that you would never be able to find in a wine (because it isn’t there). That said, the barrel fermentation and influence from the wine serve to smooth out some of the sharper edges that Mystic’s Saison has had in the past couple batches and give the brew an almost creamy mouthfeel. That creaminess would possibly be a little much, but that stream of bubbles I mentioned before serves to make it so effervescent that the creaminess is actually quite nice as it serves to lighten everything up.
I’ve seen quite a few wine barrel aged beers and usually the two flavors are competing...or even clashing. Here, though, the two work together to be more than either are apart. First of all, this is an amazing brew and I’m excited for what else Mystic has coming down the pipeline...Secondly, and more importantly perhaps, this barrel fermentation concept seems to have produced an incredibly complex yet approachable and drinkable beer and I can’t wait to see what else they do with it in the future!
I picked this bottle up at Craft Beer Cellar in Belmont.
