ALTHOUGH beer has always been able point to greater widespread popularity than wine, the fruit of the vine has always claimed a higher degree of sophistication. Both are consumed in celebratory fashion, but while the marrying of hops, barley and yeast has mostly been seen as the beverage of the great unwashed, wine, and more specifically the sparkling kind, is the go-to drink for the special occasion.
However, the beer fraternity is fighting back and providing beer lovers with an alternative to the traditional New Year's Eve fizz. Wild Beer Co is a brewery based in Somerset and their USP is their use of wild yeast, allowing for sponataneous and mixed fermentations. I must say, I have enjoyed some nice saison this year and have grown to be a fan of free-form fermentation.
While everyone was off sucking up to sours this year, I was devoting a part of my heart to saisons. For me, some of the most interesting beers I've sipped in the past 12 months have been takes on the Belgian farmhouse ale.
So with midnight approaching, why not crack open a bottle of Wild Beer Co's Ninkasi, what they describe as a Champagne saison.
Ninkasi is the Greek goddess of beer and the brewers were banking on some divine intervention with range of ingredients they crammed into this beer. Made with apple juice, wild yeasts and vinous hops from New Zealand, the beer also underwent a secondary fermentation using Champagne yeast, to bring some of that festive fizz.
The light fruitiness is certainly apparent on the nose with a fresh peachy aroma and a hint of pineapple. It has the cloudy look of saison and as a beer, is a stand-up, refreshing example of the style, without the slight pepperiness you'd get from an out-and-out saison.
It has a creamy mouthfeel and the sweetness isn't unbearable, the apple juice lending a sour edge to it. There's a nice fizz too which helps the flavours around the mouth, but some of the flavours could do with being a bit more assertive. It's almost like the beer is too young – it could probably do with a bit more ageing, much like the Champagne it seeks to emualte.
One to ring in 2018 perhaps?
