Saint Somewhere/Prairie Artisan Ales Carbone Colline

Brewed By: Saint Somewhere Brewing Company in Tarpon Springs, Florida  

Purchased: 750ml bottle bought at West Lakeview Liquors in Chicago, IL; 2013

Style/ABV: Saison/American Wild Ale, 8.0%

Reported IBUs: ?

Tonight's beer is a collab between Prairie Artisan Ales and Saint Somewhere Brewing.

Saint Somewhere Brewing Company is a small brewery based out of Tarpon Springs, Florida. Founded in 2007 by Bob Sylvester, the brewery focuses on smaller batch Belgian-style Ales. 

Prairie Artisan Ales are yet another brewery that began as a Kickstarter campaign. Founded in 2012 by brothers Chase and Colin Healey, the duo have been busy making beer as Gypsy Brewers, but also have their own brew facility (complete with barrels!). You can check them out on Facebook here.

The back of the bottle reads: "Brewed in collaboration with our friends at "Prairie Artisan Ales" in Oklahoma. A rustic Farmhouse Ale brewed with blackberries and toasted pecans. Named for "Carbon Hill" Alabama which is halfway between Tarpon Springs FL and Tulsa OK." 

This beer has some carbonation issues...I unscrewed the wire on the cage, and the top exploded off, cork and all. The cork almost took my head off, and the cork and cage took flight. The beer then proceeded to gush everywhere. Even my gentle pour resulted in a glass full of carbonation, so I'm typing up this little paragraph while I wait for the beer to settle down so I can take a picture of it.

Saint Somewhere/Prairie Artisan Ales Carbone Colline

After the Hulk of a head settles down, you're left with a swampy and murky, dark, orange-brown beer. The head is a brownish color, and it's sticky and dense and has good duration. When held to a bright light, the body of this beer is a dank, murky, dark orange. The head is pulling off huge orange-brown tones, and the lacing on this is nice. You can see carbonation on the edges. I like my Saisons swampy, and this one meets that criteria.

The aroma on this beer is awesome...this beer was obviously fermented with Brett, and has that classic, cellared/aged Orval funk. The aroma features funky leather, sweat, butcher shop, horse blanket...there's also some citrus, lemony funk, and nondescript fruits/berries and sweetness. 

I'm trying hard to pull out blackberries or pecans in the taste, but this mostly lays a heavy layer of Brett-funk, yeast, bready yeast and malt thickness, and berry sweetness on your tongue. There's also a nice layer of hops, which provide some bitterness and another level of depth. There's some peppery spice in here with the Brett-funk, and some berry notes (that you wouldn't peg blind). This gets a touch earthy, with a hint of leather/ash, but it's no Fantôme.

This beer is raw in its execution, with an arid finish and tons of bitterness. It's also exceedingly funky. This is my kind of Saison, yo. The 8.0% ABV is masked completely, and this has good drinkability. The mouthfeel on this is medium-bodied, but this beer is propped up with tons of carbonation. Palate depth is outstanding, but complexity waffles. This beer can't decide if it wants to embrace the Brett/lemon/pepper funk, or celebrate the addition of the berries and nuts. All-in-all though...you get some bitter punch up front, followed by huge Brett funk with lemon/citrus goodness; that rolls into some berries, hops, presumably some of that toasted pecan, peppery Brett-funk, and more citrus/Brett funk; the back end is lingering berries and fruit, and then a blast of bitter/funky dryness. The backbone of this beer has nice malt density. Good stuff.

Rating: Above-Average (4.0/5.0 Untappd)

I gotta go with a Decent Above-Average on this. I'm really digging this...even if I don't necessarily get strong blackberry or pecans. This is just a super funky, Brett-forward Saison, and that's my bag, baby. The price was right too, at around 12 dollars for a 750ml bottle. I'm going to pair this beer with some cheese sticks...because I'm classy like that. Really though, you could pair this with strong cheeses, a cheese and onion soup, anything rustic and peppery. I'm glad I bought this.

Random Thought: I need to buy more stuff from Prairie. Fact. I should probably talk about the NFL today...but I'm still recovering from all the noon games that were decided by a final score in the last few minutes of the game. The Chicago Bears didn't look like a team that just beat two of last year's playoff teams (albeit...last year's crappy playoff teams...), but they still looked better on offense than they have in a long time. That's a start, right?