Brewery: Prairie Artisan Ales
Beer: Americana (vintage 2016)
Style: Saison/Farmhouse Ale
ABV: 8.0%
Character: A dry-hopped farmhouse ale. Brettanomyces conditioned.
Ratings: BeerAdvocate: 4.10/5 | Untappd: 3.85/5
Metal Connection: CENTER OF DISEASE – Autopsia Cadaverum
BeerMetal Rating: 4/5
Unholy Hell, has it been forever since I’ve written one of these. I am really going to try….um, who am I kidding. I won’t make any more promises, as everyday something happens differently than the last, and I can not predict the future, so I will just say, keep up with my page, and check for updates!
I read a lot of reviews and I can see a trend where people love the big Stouts from Prairie more than their Sour beers, or Saisons. For me, I fucking pretty much love everything these guy have put out. My drinking experience with Prairie Artisan Ales goes back to 2013. Well, according at least to my Untappd check-ins. That shows that my very first beer was called Prairie Hop, which was another Saison/Farmhouse Ale that was packed with hops.
Usually when Prairie releases a new beer into the market here in San Antonio, I usually try to go out and buy one. But… as usual I buy beer and never drink at home, so it sits, and sits for days, weeks, months, even years. This is the case with this one. According to the sticker from the store where I purchased this beer, this bottle is from 7/6/16. This is not a recent purchase, so yeah, I held on to this one a bit too long. Let’s see what this beer tastes like, but first let’s talk about the bottle art.
This one comes in a 16.9 oz bottle. I love this fucking label. The beer is called Americana, and the label is a collage of random people, things, and situations that is pure Americana. This will take too long to explain them all, but I will talk about my favorite parts. The beer name is written in a marquee similar to an old theater. There is a lady in the kitchen (today, people will cry and complain about that, probably) and she is placing large eyeballs into the stove. Kind of weird! There is a man dressed in a sweater vest with his face coming off of his head. Another weird part. Random items are floating around the label such as pizza slices, a toaster, ice cream, baseballs, Popsicles, firewords, a camera, a beachball. a TV dinner tray, and other things. There are a lot more people in certain situations on there. You’ll just have to look at the label for yourself to see the rest. Here, I’ll post it for you…
Hopefully you just clicked the image above. As I said, it’s a freaky ass label. OK, let’s get into the beer. I poured this beer into a stemmed glass, and the beer’s appearance was a hazy golden color topped with a 2 inch white foamy head. Good lacing down the glass as I drank this one.
The aroma definitely had some farmhouse funk, slightly flowery, some musk, and a very light hop aroma, but I am assuming that is due to this bottle being from 2016, and I am just drinking this thing now. Oops! It was still full in the aroma though, so it wasn’t a bad beer at all in this department. I was able to pick up on some graininess, light fruit aromas of lemon, apple and pear as well. Let’s see what the taste is like.
Just like the aroma, it was full bodied and full of flavor. I do want to mention that the hops are muted, but again that is due to this being an old bottle. Lucky enough, I really do enjoy a good Saison/Farmhouse Ale, so I looked past the fallen off hops from the dry hopping in this one. Nice bretty floral taste, along with some musk, and farmhouse funk. Very grainy taste, too. I like on the end of each sip, I was picking up on the light fruit flavors of lemon, apple and pear.
Americana had a light-medium body, with a mouthfeel that was somewhat thin and watery, but not in a bad way. It was an easy drinker, for sure. I also really enjoyed the dry feeling this beer left in the throat after each sip.
Overall, I did give this beer a rating of 4/5, because as I said earlier, the main characteristics of this Saison/Farmhouse Ale really stuck out. It more than likely would have been an even higher rating if the bottle was more fresh and had that hop profile that I’m sure was in there. I know the rules of craft beer has been broken here with me drinking this one so far past the date, but don’t always let that discourage you from trying these beers. Everyone’s palate is different. Some might not like it after a while, and some, like me, will still find the good in the beer, Thanks for reading this beer review! Cheers!
Metal Connection: This one was a bit hard for me. I did not find a song with the word Americana in it, so I went with geography for this one. Center of Disease is a Brutal Death Metal band from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Even though the main brewery and taproom for Prairie Artisan Ales is located in Oklahoma City, they do have a brewpub in Tulsa, so I thought this would be a perfect Metal Connection here. Center of Disease started in 2012, and have had some line-up changes since their creation. In 2016, they released a demo, which lead to their first full length album, Morbidius Malformations, which was released in 2017 independently by the band. This album was later released in 2018 on Sonic Temple Records. I went with the song, “Autopsia Cadaverum,” which comes to us from their newly released EP, Unholy Excarnations. This EP was released just this past May on Sound of White Noise Records. My love for Brutal Death Metal has changed a bit over time (Yes I am that old man now!), but it’s mostly because some of these young bands in this sub-genre are subpar or they just flat out suck. I find the music of Center of Disease very entertaining. Vocalist, Greg Duke has a pretty low gurgle-like growl, but it’s nothing too over the top, and he stays away from the annoying as Hell pig squeals. Their music is reminiscent of early Unique Leader bands like Pyaemia, Disavowed, or Severed Savior. This is great to hear this style still alive with bands like this. Check out the video link below.
Beer Metal Media 