Stillwater Artisanal Rio de Sauvin

Stillwater Artisanal Rio de Sauvin is a Saison/Farmhouse Ale, 7.7% ABV. No bottle date, and the beer is also not listed on the Stillwater website. They are referring to this Saison brewed with mango juice and passion fruit juice as a Tropical Farmhouse Ale. According to the label this is a part of The Remix Project, and seeing as they also mention Against The Grain on the label I am going to assume this is their “re-mixed” interpretation of Rico Sauvin.

This beer pours with a rather clear pure golden color, I’d have to say this looks like “beer” if you know what I mean. The aroma is really funky, but not normally good Saison funky, but kinda weird funky. I get the sweet fruits on the nose, but there is this sharp note that is almost like straight carbon dioxide. As off putting as the nose is, I have to say I really like the taste of this. Tropical Farmhouse is a great description for this beer with sweet mango and tart passion fruit upfront. A bit of classic Saison barnyard hay bleeds into an incredible impersonation of a solid Chardonnay. This is really tremendously white wine like on the finish before a bit of a return to the fruit and grassiness from earlier in the taste. Although I am really digging the strong wine notes (I rarely drink wine, but I like a good Chardonnay when I do), it is adding an impressive amount of alcohol taste that is almost a bit too much.

This random, no expectation bottle shop grab turned out to be quite the interesting beer!