Finlandia Sahti

Brewed by Finlandia Sahti
Style: Traditional Ale
Sastamala, Finland

Serve in Dimpled mug, English pint, Stein, Yard

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My first Sahti, and so i have no possibility to compare, but this is really good stuff. Brown-orange brilliant color. No head, no carbonation. Strong sweet banana aroma and taste, alcoholic. Tastes very similar to a "Weizenbock".

keg @ Helsinki Beer Festival, Helsinki Finland Backlog 2 April, 2005
Sahti of the festival. Sweet aroma with a touch of cloudberry. Refreshing (at this strengh!) and slightly smokey. A bit buttery too. Quite complex but still clean and well balanced in an odd way. My favourite sahti!

Served ice cold in a Bordeaux Riedel glass. This very original brew has a very hazy dark orange-amberish color with a slight beige-yellowish fluffy head. The aroma is very youghurt like. You can notice hints of white cheese, ripe apricots, fermenting apple cider, some barnyard accents, wet wood, green bananas, fruit yoghurt, Alp flowers and a nice selection of herbs. The taste is refreshing and has a nice caracter. It has touches of lactic sournes, some outspoken fruit mash hints, as in the smell very yoghurt like, again some fine bitterish green banana hints and a well integrated alcohol boost. I think i realy like this style of beer. A very BIG thanks goes to Juha for sending me this most outstanding beers. Thanks my friend !!!

I have wanted to try this for a long time. I finally had the chance at RBSG 2007. Bright orange color, it looks like orange juice. I wasn’t sure it was even beer from across the room, but maybe some sort of fruit-liqueur. Aroma is mildly sour and herbal. Flavor is is lightly sour again, nothing like a lambic, but only a little sour. Some fruit here has well, quite tart, balanced by sugar. I did not pick up any juniper. Very enjoyable and great palate, I could drink a lot of this. I did think the alcohol was much lower.

UPDATED: NOV 16, 2005 (750 ml bottle: Obtained in trade with bogdi1, thanks Juha!, and shared with SDbruboy) This is easily one of the most incredible treats I’ve experienced since I began rating beer twelve years ago. Not only because this is wonderfully delicious, but also because tasting a traditional Sahti is a brand new experience for me, and it’s such a rare treat to get to taste this on this side of the Atlantic. I’ve tasted an American beer that is inspired by Sahti (Southampton Juhlia) but while that Southampton beer is very tasty, it’s quite different from what Juha has sent me from Finland. Understanding that freshness is of the utmost importance with this style, I must point out that Juha bought this bottle immediately prior to mailing it to me, it took at most a week to arrive, and it’s being consumed another week later, so this bottle can’t be more than three weeks old. I can’t speak the language, but I see "Parasta Ennen: 13 -11-" on the label, so I’m making the assumption that this should be consumed by, well, TODAY! Woohoo! Anyway, pouring this into a tulip glass, it’s dark orange-amber in color and very cloudy, and a small half-inch off-white head forms within a few seconds. I took my first sniff and initially thought "Saison", but I quickly realized that this is much closer to a German Hefeweizen, but with a twist. It shows an amazing aroma of sweet, ripe banana and spices that seem close to clove and nutmeg to me, but there is also a pleasant sour aroma to balance out the sweetness. Very aromatic indeed, unique, savory, I can just keep sniffing my Sahti all night. Continuing on with this delectable Finnish gift, the flavor shows similar characteristics, lots of sweet banana and bubblegum, plenty of spice, but the citrus and green apple tartness is more apparent on the tongue than in the nose, easily balancing the sweetness. The sweet banana tends to fade a bit toward the finish, and while the spices hold steady, the tartness exerts a bit of muscle, showing some dominance in the finish. I also get a slight smokiness in the finish after awhile. So not only does the tartness balance the sweetness, it keeps the palate refreshed. Body seems about medium "plus" to me, but again, the tartness seems to help lighten the body somewhat. Carbonation is good and there’s a bit of zest and tang on the palate as well. Though the head settles to a filmy layer, there is plenty of patchy and spotty lacing scattered all over the glass. Sadly, I’ve come to the end of this session as I only have an ounce left in my glass, and then finally pouring the liquidy sediment into my glass, hoping for another taste, this is now amazingly sour, wow! It’s sad how I’m trying to savor this, preserve the last remaining drops for as long as possible, knowing it will be quite a long time before I get to partake in this wonderful Finnish beverage again, and hopefully it’s a matter of when, not if. Thank you, Juha, once again for sending this to me, you will forever be a friend.

Pat kindly gave me a good amount out of this bottle with tom. I had not sampled sahti since the low lands gathering 2 yrs ago. A amazingly interesting beer! A golden amber colour with a very slight white head. A very herbal and perfumed aroma with hints of juniper berries, elderberry gooseberries and yeast. Sweet and ripe summer fruits with lillies and some tart gooseberry and lychee. Alcohol is well balanced although pat says it was too strong for the normal version. light carbonation. Strange but very interesting.

Plastic bottle (trade with Jukkabro - much thanks). Honey banana malt, vanilla, and clove aroma. Cloudy orange-brown color with no appreciable head. Sweet ripe banana/light orange, bitter clove and mild malt flavor. Slight alcohol finish. (best by 11.03.2011). One of my biggest wants. Not disappointed - very similar to a fresh weizen that’s heavy on the spices.

Ya, ya, I know, it’s irresponsible to review this style, especially having been shipped across the Atlantic and given that this is a style that is a definite "must consume fresh". Oh well, I want to share my thoughts on the beer, so I’m going to. Sampled this bottle courtesy of my friend Juha over in Finland, at Candace and Todd’s wedding party on 9/24/2005.
Pours a rather cloudy (you can’t get this beer to become clear, no matter how long it sits, we tried), but yet bright, orange-yellow, medium-large sized bubbles breaking to the surface, lazily, here and there. Smattering of white bubbles on the edges, and some wispy foam on top that disippates almost immediately. There is some sparse lacing, more like sticky liquid coating down the glass than actual white foam. Aroma has the lovely sour, vinegar-like acidity, rotten pears and peaches, light woodiness and moss, with a hint of vanilla, spoiled tangerines and of course the huge shot of juniper spiciness (tartness, really). Lightly funky, a touch of cheesiness and really quite inviting to yours truly.
The beer poured at the top of the bottle was quite bright flavored, still very vinegary/sour and full of juniper and light cheese, but the flavors go well with a light, moderately sweet, not-quite-caramel flavor, a bit of light bready/doughiness and some lemon sugar cookies. But then it’s quickly back to the sour citric elements, strong vinegar and almost wet, oily cedarwood like notes. Mouthfeel is fairly loose, with large bubbles giving it a fairly broken feel; this is no tightly carbonated gueuze. But no matter, it does not seem watery or thin, just lightly bubbly and a little loose on the edges.
At the bottom of the bottle it’s a different story, mixing in the MASSIVE amount of sediment, which can not be helped. Muddy, completely opaque and very challenging in appearance, the beer takes on not what I would have expected (a dull, blander quality), a massively more sour, bitter and astringent flavor. Yikes! This is some seriously sour stuff at the end and makes yours truly cringe after finishing it. Oily, highly sour/tart. Like biting in to unripened juniper berries, perhaps. Still, there is a lightly bittersweet flavor that somehow allows me to enjoy it.
Very interesting stuff, I enjoyed it more than the Strong Sahti, to be honest.

Courtesy of oh6gdx. Pours brown and still. Smells of bananas, lots of spices and juniper. Tastes earthy with lots of great winterberry and banana qualities. I really wish this one was available here and that I could be more descriptive on this one. I definitely would like to revisit both of these a few more times. Hopefuly that will become a reality.

Raw funk runs a riot with a grated bree head and smothers in with juniper. Banana runs the show in the with but takes the raw cheesiness with him.