Brewery: Freetail Brewing Company
Beer: Save the Cave
Style: Experimental Beer
ABV: 5.6%
Character: Brewed with beets, oranges, and rosewater
Metal Connection: BENIGHTED – Asylum Cave
Freetail Brewing Company is a nice little brewpub here in San Antonio, TX who just celebrated their 5th year anniversary a couple of months ago at the end of November ’13. Since their beginning they have offered a very unique beer line-up with some straight forward normal styles, and some off the wall, creative styles. None the less, these guys have been successful since their inception. They have offered most of their beers on draft at the brewpub, while offering up some really tasty food. Every now and then, Freetail Brewing Co. offers some of their beers in bottle form. These are usually their bigger beers, or experimental ales, like Save the Cave. They don’t have a specific style listed on their website about this beer, but it is listed as “Experimental Beer”. According to Beer Advocate, it is listed as a Belgian Pale Ale, and on RateBeer it is a Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beer, so you can see there is much debate over this topic!
This beer was first released in 2012 under the name “Year of the Bat” as the breweries first attempt to raise money for the Bat Conservation International. Now here we are in 2014, and since the release of Save the Cave, money has been once again donated to this same organization. This beer is released to raise awareness of the importance of Bracken Cave, which is endangered by encroaching development.
Using an End of the World of Crappy Beers 2012 pint glass by Freetail Brewing Company respectfully for this beer. Save the Cave poured a clear orange-copper color, capped with a thin layer of bubbly head. The head quickly disappeared and left soap-like streaks down the glass, but none stuck around.
The aroma is sweet, with hints of oranges, rose pedals, a little earthy, a light clove spice, and a lingering banana-like scent at the end. This has a very nice complex nose.
The taste is a little different than the aroma. I am not picking up on the oranges as strongly as I did in the aroma. They are present but subtle behind the main flavors here which are the the beets, and the rosewater. The beets provide an earthy, vegetable flavor, which is then complimented with a hint of the rose water. The taste of sweet sugar combined with the rose water addition gives this beer a rose syrup flavor. The yeast is present in the taste as well, making this beer tasteful and drinkable like a good Altbier or Kölsch.
The body is a light-medium thickness, with a smooth, creamy mouthfeel with a slight bitter bite. The body helped make this beer an easy drinker for sure.
Overall, this beer was more unique the second time around. When I first had this one, while drinking with friends, it was hard to focus on the exact aromas and taste, but a second glass, a couple of days later, the characters in this beer really popped out to me a lot more. Of course, as the beer sat and warmed up, the flavors and aromas seemed to come out a lot more, especially the taste of the rose water, and beets.
Metal Connection: One of my favorite Brutal Death Metal band that has emerged in the underground Metal scene is Benighted from France. These guys have been brutalizing the scene since 2000 and have released six full length CDs so far , and another on the way next month. These guys play a great mixture of styles within their albums, and there is a great musical complexity within their albums. Just like this beer, a good complex aroma and taste due to the ingredients used. I have chosen the title track from their 2011 full length album, Asylum Cave. Enjoy the brutality!
Beer Metal Media 