My first sight of her stopped me dead in my tracks. It wasn’t a simple “sumthin’ about her;” it was the promise in her label of the kind of beauty that stopped a god in his tracks.
When I reached for her, curious, appreciative, she returned nothing. I didn’t exist. I’m used to that, after all. I mean, I am a geek, and this is Jolly Pumpkin’s iO, the bottled representation of a mortal woman who seduced a god. What chance, then, does a guy like me have? I get all sweaty just talking about a Scotch Ale for Olympus’ sake.
iO is no normal saison, despite her own less-then-sincere insistence on being ‘ohhh, nothing special.’ Nothing special?? You’re brewed with rose hips, rose petals and hibiscus! Unworldly beauty! Ingredients only the artists at Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales dare add to their beers! But there she sits, just staring through me.
iO saunters into my glass a beautiful amber-red, slight hints of pink when I hold her up to the light (making her almost too bright for me to stand to look at). A thick, cottony summertime-cloud of a head with a hint of pink in its otherwise white purity sits airily atop the uniquely-hued brew. Hints of hidden treasures to be enjoyed perhaps? I’m certainly enticed, but I was from the start.
iO’s perfume starts out like Traverse City in July. A veritable festival of tart cherries blended with fresh-ground pepper, apple cider, and a Victorian garden full of flowers flutters past my nose, aloof but no less alluring. That characteristic Belgian earthy-tart shines through the entire olfactory experience (oh, did I just call Io a tart? No, I said she was tart…ugh; I get nervous around beauty) and this beer is beautiful.
iO dances across my taste buds with every flavor I dreamed she would be and more. iO’s perfectly-picked perfume is mirrored in her taste bud tap-dance with the tongue-tickling tart cherries and peppery spice. She adds to it some green apples, earth and grains. But where most mortal saisons end, iO steps up her game. Take that wheaty sweettart refresher and add all the sexy, sultry, refined sophistication of a rose garden at its absolute glowing height, and you have iO. Those roses serve to temper the puckery earthiness of most normal saisons by adding a fresh green grass and beautifully-cultivated floral sweetness I’ve not tasted in a beer like this.
I love a great saison; it’s a perfect summertime beer. It’s light, effervescent, and its normal flavors make your brain and tongue think “ahhh, refreshing.” Normally a sweet tart in a bottle, with that classic French-Belgian earthiness, iO’s addition of strong flowers adds a whole new character to the beer; funk gives way to floral, tart sweetness tempered by rose petal beauty. Beyond seduced, I am smitten by iO. She’s unique; singled-out among the crowd of already beautiful beers…
I don’t blame you, Zeus.
