Glazen Toren Saison dErpe-Mere

Brewed by Kleinbrouwerij De Glazen Toren
Style: Saison
Erpe-Mere, Belgium

Serve in Tulip

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Smelled and tasted like a Heff, cirtus banana peppery note and tongue, bitter finish.

Bottle: Aroma is yeasty with some apricot and light spice. Pours a hazy dull yellowish-orange with a very nice white head with very good retention. Excellent lacing. Orange and yeast flavors up fornt. Finishes with lots of orange peel, spice, and a rather strong bitterness.

Bottle provided by Pailhead for the Labor Day gathering:

Hazy golden hue with a long lasting frothy head and very good lacing. The arom has notes of tangerine, grapefruit, wild flowers and heather, with some funky and sweaty yeast esters. The taste is yeasty and cheesy up front with lemongrass and vegetable notes. Twangy finish with minor bitterness. The mouth feel is aggressive and carbonated heavy with a dry aftertaste. I would try this again, a good beer.

Bottled on 4/30/2005, consumed on 9/1/2005. First sniff: Fantome saison clone, but not nearly as funky, no real dusty bacteria or limey bite to it. Very wheaty, with lots of lemon sponge cake. Some lovely spicy hops. The more it breathes, the more clean it gets. Light perfuminess from the hops. Notes of an abbey trippel without the intense yeast or sugariness/alcohol. . . . So actually not really anything like an abbey trippel. Very generic smelling, in a good way, meaning at least it has all the base characteristics I would look for in a real Belgian saison.

Quite light in color. A cloudy, hay-yellow, dulled with an almost greenish tint. Slight copper hues on the edges. Huge, pillowy, intense head is pure white. Very well retained. Tiny bubbles rise. So far so good!
First sip has sugary cotton candy and peaches, transitioning in to a light tangerine/nectarine flavor, lightly bitter and finally ending on the bitter hops note AND a high amount of acidity (high relative to style). With more sips, the sugary pils malt, quite thick and blanketing gives way (or actually, the palate just becomes acclimated) and the hops really come forth. Very hoppy, with light honey behind it. Then a clean yeast finalé. I like the hops but I can’t help wondering if this was hopped at this high a level from pressure by the distributor to appease the American market. Anyways, where is the funky character?? Maybe it will develop in time? Seems way too clean though. But on the other hand. It’s very well-made and flavorful. Great mouthfeel (though you kind of come to expect that as given from a high-quality Belgian ale). It has moments where I catch a glimpse of greatness. Fantome Saison, Vervifontaine Blonde. . .glimpses. Fresh hops and light vanilla on the end, some lingering acidity. Will it stand the test of time? That’s the question.

UPDATED: AUG 30, 2010 Bottle (May 2010 bottling). Head is initially huge, frothy, rocky, white, mostly lasting. Body is hazy medium yellow, bottle conditioned. Aroma is moderately malty (toasted grain), lightly hoppy (flowers, herbs), lightly yeasty (cobwebs), with notes of lemon zest, SweetTarts candy, and sour vegetable matter (kale, squash, celery). Flavor is moderately sweet, lightly acidic, lightly bitter. Finish is lightly sweet, lightly acidic, lightly to moderately bitter. Medium body, velvety texture, lively carbonation, lightly alcoholic. Awesome appearance, great mouthfeel, and nicely balanced, but the weird vegetal note in the aroma is difficult to overlook. Paper-wrapped and less than 4 months from bottling date means this character is likely as-designed...in fact my old 2005 rating mentioned "celery". If that aroma wasn’t there, this would likely be around a 4.0. Sadly, it’s fairly significant and quite unpleasant.

Bottle (GBBF): Cloudy gold with a sudsy white head. Spice, honey and pineapple aromas. Apricot, estery spice flavour. Very fruity, medium bodied and very tasty.

Pours from the bottle a massive white head similar to duvel or other highly carbonated belgian beers. A hazy medium gold body and high carbonation. Head is pure white- very tight tiny bubbles form a merangue like coating aorund the rim of the glass (Duvel Glass). When cold the aroma is very faint, but as it warms a bit, some phenolics come out. Almost a plastic-like phenolic character is noticed. A fair amount of spice and fruit from the yeast. Flavor is very smooth light bready malt and some dough-like yeast characteristics. Moderately sweet all the way around and finishes very dry-kinda like some blaugies saisons. Also since they "double hop" all thier brews thier is a nice faint earhty hoppiness all the way through and has a medium to light hop bitterness. Not sour at all. Overall I think this is a good standard saison similar to dupont or blaugies.

just shelled out $8.59 +tax for this awful beer. It was fizzy beyond belief. Poured all fizz and took like 15 minutes to settle. Smelled like butt, tasted the same, with tons of off sour taste. I believe it to be a bad bottle, but maybe it is just a bad brew??? Now looking at other rating. I say stay away.

Bottle@GBBF 05’. Quite peppery and spicy, yet smooth. Some citrus aswell as grape as mads points out. Soft smooth, clean, slightly bitter finish, quite nice.

Bottled @ GBBF 2005: Golden coloured. Hazy. White head. Grape, citrus, yeast and other wheaty notes in the aroma. Flavour of fruity and grape. Quite spiced. Clean and cleansing in the end. Quite sour. Nice one.