Autumn at the Gate

Stuff your summertime hoppy pale ales. The Open Gate Brewery went full harvest mode as soon as the leaves began to turn brown. Here's what I found when visiting recently. 

New on tap in early September was Saison, seemingly quite a straight-up example: 6% ABV and hazy blonde. Like any sane person, I like these dry and this one isn't, particularly. It opens on an enjoyable spicy note, blending black and white pepper, but quickly adds fruit to the picture. Peach and apricot is the menu author's take on it and I don't disagree, but would add Golden Delicious apple and a more exotic lychee element. It doesn't turn sickly, the body is light for the strength, and there's an almost-dry grainy rasp in the finish, so I give this a pass. It's not top-notch saison but is still a welcome example of a style in short supply.

For Oktoberfest season, we got Oktoberfest Märzen, though not one which would pass muster in Munich. It's kind of a murky brown or dark amber colour, and with that there's a somewhat rustic brown-bread fuzz. That adds a sweetness which is pleasant, but not the same sort as you get in the genuine article. The slightly syrupy quality in the aroma and which emerges towards the end of the flavour is more accurate, but doesn't make it a better beer. The finish is what saves it, with the sticky malt clearing away quickly and a ray of positive hop bitterness offering a cheery valediction. Maybe a half pint wasn't the way to test out a beer style meant to be consumed by the litre, though I maintain this one would be hard work, and that's only partly because it's 5.6% ABV. The sweetness, of different sorts, is laid on too thickly.

Autumn means harvest, and Open Gate gave us Catherine's Harvest, a pale ale with blueberries. Catherine who, you ask? Is it the saint who owns the parish next to St James? We are not told. We do know that this is an experimental grain bill, using 30% raw barley. It's 4.5% ABV and a pale orange shade. There's a sweet-sour aroma which is presumably down to the berries but isn't attractive, adding an unwelcome note of vinegar. I also perceived a definite thinness to the body which I've decided to blame on the reduced malting, and the sharpness from the aroma reappears though is muted. The blueberry aspect unfolds from this, becoming jammy and tart. Without a big enough malt base, however, that slips over into being acrid and stomach-curdling. This experiment didn't work for me. Maybe beer recipes are more than 70% malt for a reason.

A Rauchbier follows, the beer style on which so many ambitious breweries founder. This one almost matches Schlenkerla's 5.6% ABV, at either 5.4% or 5.8%, depending which menu you believe, though not its colour, being another fuzzy ochre job. The aroma is promisingly subtle; just the sizzle of the bacon, not the whole rasher. Its flavour leads on caramel, but turns quickly to smoke. That's still fairly subtle compared to other examples, without a trace of acridity or unpleasant fishiness. It's the easy-going, crackling-adjacent flavour of bacon crisps rather than real meat. It works very well, maintaining drinkability while still having plenty of smoke character. Not as much as the wizards of Bamberg, of course, but this is a fun and interesting alternative approach. I could absolutely drink this one by the litre.

A bit of whimsy to finish: Open Gate's opening line-up in 2015 included an Imperial Dunkel Weisse, an experiment to see how Guinness yeast would work in a German-style wheat beer, of all things. Since then, science has told us that Guinness yeast basically is a phenol-positive German-style wheat beer yeast, and now I can't help wondering if the brewers already knew this. We've had a slight name change, to Imperial Dunkel Weizen, and a minor boost in ABV to 8.6%. It's an appropriate dark brown colour and smells warm and caramel-smooth, even when poured ice cold. The roast hits first in the flavour, intensely dry, like black toast. That's followed by softer banana, sweet marzipan and a hint of clove spice. I'm not usually a fan of dunkelweizen, but this melds the good sides of dark beer and wheat beer well, doubtless assisted by that luxurious ABV.

Well played Open Gate, and happy birthday. Since Guinness side-projects tend to have a very short life, it's nice to see this one still running, even after craft beer hit the skids as a mainstream offer. Keep 'er lit.