If you’re like me, you’re not particularly good at travel. There’s the alternation between procrastinating by watching an entire season of Arrested Development and packing; The panicked last minute attempt to find approximately as many clean socks as you’re likely to need (followed by the impulse to forget the entire process and attempt to buy sandals in French upon arrival); The sudden awareness somewhere around Cornwall that you’re almost completely certain that you left the back right element of the stove on even though you can’t ever remember using it.

It’s not really a huge surprise then that I somehow managed to leave all of my research in Toronto. I figure that it is either sitting at the bottom of the garbage chute in my building (a victim of my frenzied attempt to clean the place up before leaving) or in a shirt pocket somewhere. Eventually I went with a series of ticks next to things I wanted to try, putting lines through everything else. I’m sure that the ticks would have been enough but there’s a certain amount of joy to be found in striking a line through something you don’t like. It certainly doesn’t matter now.

In the absence of a carefully thought out plan I simply decided that today was going to be Saison day. For those of you not acquainted with the style, It’s a pale ale from the french speaking region of Belgium. It’s very much a summer beer. It tends to be fermented at a much higher temperature than regular ales, meaning that it would be possible to produce it during the hottest parts of the year. It tends to use specific yeast to give it tart flavour, sometimes going as far as using Brettanomyces to give it a serious Wallonian funk. People refer to barnyard aromas when talking about Brettanomyces. If you don’t know what that means, you should plan a trip to the sheep pen at your local petting zoo.

I decided that I was going to start the day with the Hopfenstark Berliner Weisse. It’s not made in quite the same way as the Saison, but it’s in the same flavour range, providing a tart refreshing flavour at about 3.2% alcohol. One of the most important things about attending a beer festival is pacing, so starting out with an extremely low alcohol beer is a good idea. It provides you with a sense of perspective. At least it should have.

When I got to the festival some of the booths weren’t set up yet, and Hopfenstark was one of them. Plan B sort of went out the window at that point for a couple of reasons, not the least of which was that I had no starting point. The other problem was that this year the festival organizers in their seemingly Machiavellian wisdom have chosen not to provide anywhere to sit. This is a massively destructive broadside to an intellectual approach as it means that you’re constantly walking around faced with shiny, distracting reminders about the fact that there all these other beers to try. It tends to provoke you into thinking about what’s next rather than focusing on the sample that you’re currently enjoying. It’s more than mildly exploitative of the fact that beer nerds tend to exist at the same mental level as a six year old at a theme park. That may help explain the increasingly schizophrenic list and the order in which I tried things. Samples are 4-5 ounces unless otherwise noted:

Allagash Black – 2 Coupons – A dark belgian style with a lot of roasted malt. I found the presence of the malt a little harsh. Somewhere around 7.0% alcohol. Not a good choice to start the day for that reason.

Cheval Blanc Saison Blanche + Brett. – 2 Coupons – Remember about the Sheep? One of the things about Brettanomyces is that it’s hard to predict exactly what will happen. This ended up being less tart and sour than sort of unpleasantly bitter. I somehow ended up with a full glass of this and couldn’t finish it.

Dieu Du Ciel Solstice D’ete (I think it’s a maple saison with blackberries)– 4 Coupons – I liked this one, but became distracted by the thought that one of the aromas reminded me of the smell when you unwrap a babybel mini. I am not sufficiently advanced to offer a guess as to what chemical compound causes that aroma in beer. I suspect that people who are advanced enough to guess would point and laugh at that assessment.

Beau’s Matt’s Sleepy Time Belgian Imperial Stout – 3 Coupons – 8ish% alcohol. I liked this and compared it favourably to the Allagash Black. Same sort of Belgian influence with the dark, roasted malt flavours, but it was smoother and less aggressive. It might be less authentic, but I didn’t really care because I had heard about….

Samuel Adams Utopia – 7 Coupons/~1.5 oz – 27% alcohol. This is one of those incredibly rare beers that you continue to hear about when people start talking about top ten lists. It comes in a bottle that looks as though it should probably be attached to a camel and filled with myrrh. It causes the same spreading warmth as Irish whiskey. The aroma caused me to giggle like a Pillsbury schoolgirl. The intentional scarcity created by the limited brew run probably makes it more gimmicky than it needs to be, but I noticed that people more finicky than me begrudgingly admitted it was a bargain at 7 coupons since a 26 ounce bottle can sell for up to $250.00 in some states. A ridiculous and irresponsible choice of beverage for one in the afternoon on a hot summer day.

Dieu Du Ciel Yuzu – 2 Coupons – ~4.9% alcohol. It’s a beer flavoured with Yuzu. I had it last year and didn’t really get it, but I tried it again because my friend Eric was enjoying it and I wanted something light after the 27%. I still don’t get it.

Dieu Du Ciel Pioniere – 4 Coupons – 9.5% alcohol. If Peche Mortel is an Imperial Coffee Stout, then this is an Imperial Coffee Double Black IPA. If you’re going to the festival, you should try this for sure. I’ve never seen anything else like it. Stefan, one of the nearly aggravatingly competent brewers, explained that this batch was less hoppy than their initial run. I think that’s not a bad thing necessarily. After all, if it were hoppier they’d never be able to do a dry-hopped cask version without being charged with assault.

Hopfenstark Berliner Weisse – 3 Coupons – 3.2% alcohol. The festival organizers had finally delivered the kegs to the Hopfenstark booth, so I was pleased to try this beer which I remembered so favourably. The truth is that you could probably drink it all afternoon without ill effect, so after a monster like the Pioniere it was a refreshing change. Light and tart. A reasonable choice for a hot summer day.

At that point the handwriting in my notebook degrades significantly. This is probably due to the fact that a sound tasting strategy involves moving from light alcohol beers to high alcohol beers and from lightly hopped beers to heavily hopped beers. It does not involve anything like what happened today.

Ah well, there’s always tomorrow.