Beer Works Mysterian (Brett version)

Brewed by Salem Beer Works
Style: Belgian Ale
Salem, Massachusetts USA

Serve in Trappist glass, Tulip, Tumbler

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Tap@Beer Works. A pleasant Belgian style pale. This was quite dry, with some nice lightly earthy hop flavours and some soft bitterness. Lightly yeasty characters as well. Quite hazy/cloudy. Quite drinkable.

Pours deep yellow as a typical belgian. Musty aroma with the Brett on the forefront. You get more spices within the mouthfeel. The fruit flavors push towards the finish.

[draught @ Canal Street, 7/31/07] Earthy hop aroma, with the slightest hint of brett funk. Pours a luminous golden yellow color with an ample white head. Earthy, somewhat spicy hop character provides the foundation for some major brett funk as well as some pear and apple flavors towards the finish. Very dry and funky brett finish works well.

UPDATED: NOV 27, 2007 Many, many draught tulips at Fenway locale on 7/31/07
Neat, small, white head is well-retained, especially for this brewpub, which usually has some retention/lacing problems. Body is a moderately hazy, golden delicious apple yellow, with strong gold tints.
Lovely lilac and wildflower hoppiness in the nose peppered by light phenols and some pear skin and other esters. Pronounced, but yet soft and elegant. Medium high strength of aroma.
Spicy golding hops are very fresh and flavorful, peppering the palate with vivid allusions to Orval. The brett slowly inserts itself towards the finish, following a very clean, moderately sweet pale maltiness and adds a strong layer of tartness that really helps clear the palate on the end. Pear skins, limes, honey, wildflowers and white pepper phenols all swirl about as the luscious liquid sits on the palate. For a draught beer, the carbonation is fairly engaging, though the bubbles are a bit too large and it does create a little bit of looseness/flabbiness. Malts feel about on par with an aged Orval, having a touch of paperiness to them, but otherwise still retaining the balancing sweetness. Very, very hoppy, but never bitter hoppy. Tons of brett and with a vivid lilac telltale Orval signature that only Goldings and Brett mixed together can provide. Not Orval, but damn near close.
I didnt find the base beer, when I had it last about 3 years ago, to be as riveting, but that could be a lot of things, and indeed I can only judge what I’m tasting here. Though with that in mind, and having only had this one batch, I probably am not giving it as high a rating as it deserves, as I still wonder about the consistency of producing this beer. There’s a big difference between producing a highly successful Orval clone and producing Orval year-after-year (which certainly has its consistency problems as well).

Draught again, Canal St location with Duff on 8/31/07
Unfortunately, either the keg was all churned up, or we got the bottom of it. Unsettled, very muddy pour and all of the yeast and other sediment dulled the aroma and caused dirty notes in the flavor. Still pretty damned good, but no where near what it was fresh and much less muddy when I had it at Fenway. I’ll still keep my rating from that one, but if I rated this sample, it would be more like a 7/3/7/4/13

Tap @ Salem Beer Works. Pours a golden amber with a small white head. Aroma is overwhelming hop with slight fruit, yeast, and citrus notes. Taste is the hoppy explosion you expect from a dry-hopped ale, though the finish was slightly watery. Overall a great brew.