Day 347: Existent

Name: Existent

Brewer: Stillwater Artisanal Ales (Baltimore, MD)

Classification: Saison

Alcohol: 7.4%

Thoughts: Sometimes when I am shopping for beer I get a little tingling in my bollocks and I reach for something really good. I want a challenge because it really does give me a whizzing feeling that I really enjoy. It is something I get when I listen to an artsy album or watch an artsy film. It is an very introspective feeling. I am going to call it the "Artsy Whiz" from now on. Stillwater Artisanal Ales is one of these breweries that give me the Artsy Whiz by just looking at it. I chose Existent, which is labeled on the bottle as an American Farmhouse Ale. Farmhouse Ales are another word for a Saison, but as you can tell by the picture it looks like no Saison you've ever seen. This dark Saison pours a dark brown color that is murky especially when the light catches it. The head is beige, bubbly and thinly dispersed with some decent trails of lace. The initial aroma smells roasted like coffee and chocolate as expected based on the looks of this brew. It carries a very dry and earthy aspect to it. Through the middle are peppery accents from the yeast along with a lemony citrus aspect that is quite interesting. This brew has a rustic feel and taste to it. The flavor is long and fades to mostly chocolate bready malts with some herbal, lightly funky Belgian yeast. A masterful brew! It drinks very complexly but flows lightly over the palate. I will admit it doesn't taste like many other Saisons I have tried, but I am going to give far more dark Saisons a try. The other piece of trivia is the man on the bottle is non other than Fredrich Nietzsche. He once famously said, "...and if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." Well, this is definitely an abyss worth staring into. 

Rating: 92/100