CynicAle, Surly’s newest beer, will debut next week, June 1st, at the Happy
Gnome. Stop on by that evening to check out their new deck and check out our
new beer. It will roll out in bars and restaurants the following day, Friday,
June 2nd. Start asking for it at your favorite Surly bar today.
[These details come from Omar of Surly, edited for publishing on MNBeer]
Any reviews of CynicAle out there? I know it’s a saison-style, but can anyone offer any more insight?
We were trying to coax some infor out of Omar last night at the Blue Nile, but didn’t get much.
Cynic actually reminds me a bit of a hefeweizen, though devoid of the banana-like esthers you often find in hefes… I thought the beer still had the yeasty presence, although more on the clove side of the spectrum. To me, it tasted light and fairly refreshing.
That being said, I’ve only tasted a couple of different Saisons, one of them being Dupont. I reserve the right to be totally off base here…
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CynicAle is in the saison (or farmhouse ale) style. It’s also a fairly strong beer, weighing in at almost 7% ABV. No spicing, all esters appeared to be from the yeast. The yeast could give it some of the esters like a Hefe, I didn’t notice any wheat malt presence.
In general, Saisons should be well carbonated, fairly dry, and often exhibit a bit of a wild, rustic character. Generally the style is not spiced, though examples exist. BJCP guidelines for Saison are here:
http://www.bjcp.org/styles04/Category16.html
Overall I think CynicAle fits the style very well. The only thing it was lacking was the high carbonation. This will likely be a problem most places, as most retailers don’t like to fiddle with their line pressures much and many use a beer gas blend. Beer gas (a Co2/Nitro blend) has reduced CO2 absorption (so even if the beer started in the keg with high carbonation, as the keg empty the carbonation levels often drop) and also tends to give a softer, slicker note to the beer. For example, Vanberg & DeWulf, importers of Saison Dupont, recommend their saisons be pushed at an elevated pressure with only straight CO2.
Saison Dupont, Foret, Blaugies Saison d’Epeautre, Fantome Saison, and Ommegang Hennepin are all great commercial examples. Some beers by Vapuer are also in the farmhouse ale/saison style.
A great resource for more information is the recent “Farmhouse Ales” book by Phil Markowski.
Hope this helps some!
Truth
Pretty much what Truth said….
No Wheat and No spices in Cynic.
The Cynic that was poured at the open house was under carbonated.My fault, no wait maybe that was Omar’s bad.
Anywho, in one short week we can all drink it again and the C02 is all good,at about 2.60 vol.
later
I should have it at the Blue Nile next week…and will try to carbonate it properly!
PS: Another good example of the style, which I just tried last night, is Jolly Pumpkin’s Bam Biere. Nice complexity, dry, sparkling, and a bit wild. It was $1.99 for a 12oz bottle at Thomas Liquors.
anyone know who will be providing the music at the gnome? their website, http://www.thehappygnome.com, has nothing (and I mean NOTHING!)