Like a moth to a flame, I cannot resist any offering from this brewery for the simple fact that across all styles they always deliver. It’s like the sure thing, someone sets you up with a friend who is into pilates, chances are the stage is set for something unhorrific. Wait, wait, I am generalizing, I have never taken pilates nor have I tried the entire HF lineup, shucks.

Arthur and hundreds of crusaders died just to taste this sweet libation. Thanks a lot Mr. Hill.

Hill Farmstead, Arthur, saison, 6% abv

A: As usual, Hill Farmstead has turned out a beautiful beer with a deep golden radiance that has some brassy translucence. The carbonation is frothy like an egg drop sour with soapy lacing like when you bathing the chillums and they as lively as bedbugs.

There is a whimsical aspect to this beer, but deep down you know that it is all business.

S: There’s a distinct herbal notes almost like evergreens, light funkiness like a wet Jansport backpack, and finally some dry esters. The whole affair seems crisp and sterile like surgical gloves, each note is in its place and tagged. The mastery from this old farm is noteworthy.

T: The taste has a nice herbal snap to it like walking on twigs in the verdant Vermont pastures. There’s a super dry Belgian ester note that reminds me of clove or sage, must be the new yeast. It makes a light arid beer like this feel more at home in the wintertime. The lingering flavor is a light crackery finish, again, an entirely satisfying affair. It’s tough to make quips and cracks when a beer is just dead on, I have some serious first world beverage dilemmas going down here. Boo hoo, this limited saison is too delicious to make fun of on the internet. sob sob.

It is wildly inappropriate how refreshing this beer is. Why must Vermont be so far away?

M: The mouthfeel is crisp and light with a nice brackish feel to it. It isn’t salty in a gose way, but it certainly has its own salinity that I gather is from the Vermont well that I am so fond of. The mouthfeel is hard, much like the rest of their lineup and I love the mineral finish because it is muted but accents all of the acidity and hops going on. Like that tonguekiss from the local coal miner who is nice enough, but come on, all up in your mouth?

D: This beer is incredibly drinkable and even in this bitter winter where you can hardly sit outside for an hour in the stinging dull sunglight, I could still muster up the strength to request more of these. The alkaline finish and hop balance act in tandem and just push this saison over the top. I guess on a minor level, the 750ml format isn’t ideal but hey a beggar and his chooser are soon parted.

If you start knocking off liquor stores looking for this precious beer, there's a few things that you should know about dealing with police.

Narrative: The violet hibiscus flower swayed lazily in the breeze and hugged the ocean currents longingly. It was that charming interval in between the crest of winter and the break of spring with its life giving rains to satiate the soil of the land. And then those fucking white thistle buds moved in. Generally speaking, a “weed” is a subjective term, without any classification value, since a plant that is a weed in one context is not a weed when growing where it belongs or is wanted. But just the way that these stupid fucking thistles spread their tacky thorny brambles about the sediment bed seemed to rob the entirely majesty of the Lent season. As if that weren’t bad enough, the younger zygotes budding and making a mess all over the place, then invite those godforsaken dandelions to commune with them under the regal hibiscus branches. It was all fun and games of toleration until finally one of the children plucked the dandelion reproductive spore and blew it all over the the wanting peat. Now it was going to be nothing but lowbrow commoners and ticky tacky flora of all varieties. The hibiscus were racist as the day was long but, if one did not maintain purity in Genus, what was one reduced to, Order?