Tasting notes: Sante Adairius Rustic Ales
Sante Adairius’ mixed-fermentation beers, which can withstand up to a year of bottle aging, come in 750ml bottles. Their hoppy beers, however, are meant to be consumed quickly, and are available exclusively in growlers or kegs, not cans or bottles. The prices below reflect SARA’s Capitola taproom, where the vast majority of the brewery’s sales come from (glasses refer to a 12-oz draft pour, bottles to the 750ml bottles). But the beer can be found semireliably at a handful of Bay Area bars and restaurants, including Toronado (S.F.), Beercraft (Rohnert Park), Good Karma (San Jose) and Lupulo (Santa Cruz). Some of these beers may never be made again.
Saison Bernice (6.5%; $8/glass, $18/bottle)
This, a mixed-fermentation saison fermented in stainless steel, is SARA’s best known beer for a reason. It’s peachy, floral and white peppery, with beautifully integrated, lemony acidity. A beer for wine lovers: structured, savory, its fruitiness cut with relentless earthiness.
Mercy, Mercy (5.3%)
Available exclusively at Manresa restaurant, Mercy, Mercy is a foudre-aged blend of two beer styles: saison and grisette, another farmhousestyle ale brewed with malted wheat. It’s an acid bomb, exploding with lemon, suggesting a honey-flavored cough drop, and with an ultra-precise, Champagne-like bead of carbonation. An obvious beer for pairing with food.
Recency Effect (7%; clubonly)
This saison is aged in gin barrels from Santa Cruz distillery Venus Spirits. The nose, though funky and sweaty, is also floral, juniper-driven, bearing evidence of the gin barrel’s botanical elements. It tastes grassy, like fresh mint leaf, and lemony, but with mellower acid than some of SARA’s other saisons.
Bright Sea Blonde (6.2%; $8/glass, $19/bottle)
A Belgian-style blonde ale, brewed with lemon zest and grains of paradise, aged in barrels. The aroma of Parmesan cheese rind leads into a seriously earthy, but still tropical-driven profile, with pineapple, green tea, stone fruit and citrus pith flavors.
Lingering Spirits (7%; $22/bottle)
Jackie O’s Brewery of Athens, Ohio, provided the bourbon barrels — which had held its Dark Apparition Russian Imperial Stout — in which this Flanders-style red ale aged. Though sour, the beer is marked by caramel, cocoa, baking spice and espresso flavors, finishing with the impression of ginger.
831 (7.2%; $6/glass)
SARA’s flagship IPA, named for the Santa Cruz area code, uses Magnum, CTZ, Simcoe and Citra hops. In typical West Coast style, it’s hazy, bright and dank, marked by grapefruit pith and pine resin, beautifully balanced.
Vanilla Joe (6.8%; $7/glass)
Sold only in the taproom, this robust porter is brewed with vanilla beans and coffee from local roaster Verve. Hugely expressive, it entices as dessert: vanilla, mocha, sweet cream, caramel, just-baked cookies. Yet it’s light on the palate, not dense or viscous.
Bottles of beer at cult brewery and taproom Sante Adairius Rustic Ales in Capitola.