No counting for taste

I liked the original Brew By Numbers naming convention: two digits for the style then another two for the iteration. You knew where you were, especially if you were methodically ticking through them, not that I was. I don't know where I stand with this new system. 01 is still saison, but have I had this pair before? I am old and confused.

Anyway, 01|Motueka & Lime looks much like the 01|01 I drank back in 2015: a sunny, hazy yellow. The aroma is enticing, offering a spritzy zest, less severe than one might expect from lime. Motueka is a pretty full-on hop too, but here it is also restrained. The lime makes its presence felt in the flavour: quite concentrated, like a cordial. It takes a moment for the dry, peppery base saison to come through after this, eventually scouring the oily fruit off the palate. The two sides work well together and the brewery's extensive experimental experience is very apparent. It's complex yet refreshing; unfussy but with a subtle novelty factor.

The other oh-one is 01|Mosaic, 5% ABV, like the above. It definitely smells like Mosaic, in the best possible way: a luscious mix of ripe mango with guava and apricot. So the flavour goes too, and again the saison element brings a funky/floral quality, resulting in something like the waft from a Lush shop: fancy bath stuff all the way. Nevertheless, I like how this maintains the integrity of Mosaic as a fruity flavoursome hop, despite everything else going on. Again it's the balance and poise born of experience, I guess. I definitely prefer this to the previous one. It is purer, cleaner, yet also more casual and fun. All of which is down to the beauty of Mosaic when used by a brewer who knows what they're doing.

Our finisher is a stout: 08|Fruit & Nut, where the ingredients list helps us out with... "nuts, fruits". Oh. There's no point listing ingredients if it's still a guessing game. It's 6.6% ABV and pours a handsome black with a tall topping of off-white foam. From the first taste I would guess it's stronger: there's a thickness and a depth of flavour of the sort normally found in stouts well beyond the 7% mark. This is also true for the wine-like aroma. The flavour shows classic stout characteristics: coffee, burnt toast, dark chocolate, and not much else. It's properly bitter, and if your pastry palate was looking for the titular novelty ingredients, it was likely looking in vain. This is a decent, middle-of-the-road medium-strong stout. It's a little bit rough, however, which lets it down. The brewery can't polish a stout quite as finely as it can a saison.

Conclusions? Nothing beats a classic style, done well, with a classic hop.