Tallgrass Ginger Peach Saison

As an overarching rule, I'm a huge fan of the beer Tallgrass makes: Vanilla Bean Buffalo Sweat is still one of my favorites, and I'll drink a Wooden Rooster any day. That being said, when I saw this one on the shelves on a hot summer day last year, I got really excited for it. Especially with the word "ginger" on it. Let's see if it can handle the BBB treatment.

Tallgrass claims they "turned it up to 11" with their Ginger Peach Saison, but honestly I wasn't impressed. If you put ginger in the name, I'm expecting ginger. Not a hint of ginger. Not the suggestion of ginger. Not spicy Belgian yeast that might be kinda ginger-y. Ginger. Now, granted, I really like ginger, so maybe that's not fair, but the beer, while crisp, seemed to lack either of its namesakes. I got the subtlest hint of a syrup-like Peach finish at the end, and as a straight-up saison it's actually not bad, but I don't know if I'd call this a Ginger or a Peach saison.

(How many times did I say ginger in that paragraph?)

Prep/Cooking

Ginger Peach's batter comes across with subtle hints of that saison-esque Belgian ester spice, but nothing all that impressive/groundbreaking. The consistency seemed to be on the thicker side (which means fluffy pancakes...right?!). Coloring is obviously going to be light.

Results

You can chalk this one up as disappointing. I'm still a huge fan of Tallgrass's beer (which reminds me...I should do Buffalo Sweat. Vanilla Bean if possible), but these just didn't pan out. There was what I'm calling a waft of peach flavor right at the beginning, but it dies off almost immediately. They have a bit of a spicy ester aroma, but that flavor doesn't show up at all.

The Decision

• Pancakes: No. It's at least drinkable as a beer. The pancakes aren't inedible, but there's nothing to them.
• Syrup: Yes. That being said, wow did they get a lot more interested with syrup. That subtle puff of fruit lasted a bit longer and there was a lot more nuance to the flavor.

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