This is the first beer I’ve had from Birrificio Baladin, a brewery based just south of Turin, and judging by this I’ll be looking hard to find some more.
Dressed immaculately in a beautifully moulded 750ml bottle with an oversized cap, I bought and opened this especially for #SupSaison, a Twitter event organised by Phil of BeerSay (@filrd) to celebrate the Saison style.
Wayan pours a delightfully warm apricot jam colour but its foamy head breaks down almost immediately.
The smell is by turns spicy and herbal, with some honey and soft fleshed fruit in the mix too.
There’s a really nice fizzy sugar candy quality here, sticky and sweet but tempered very well by the biscuit ,alts that add a good weight to Wayan’s backbone.
You get peach in here too, along with pears and apricots, a little alcohol warmth and some snappy popping peppercorns.
Roaming around in here and showing its face now and again as you work your way through the lightly sparkling beer is a very nice yeast that gives a good balance to the hops which are sharp and green, crisp with dried lemon rind and damp with pithy elderberries.
There’s only one problem and that is that you can drink this beer like fizzy pop.
It’s proving difficult to make it last.