Beers Of London Series
40. Weird Beard Brew Co. / Elusive Brewing - Nelson Saison 6.9%

Sometimes a beer comes along that demands that you have to review it instantly. This is such a beer.
Collaboration brews are all the rage at the moment and saisons are particularly 'on trend', but you would be very much mistaken for thinking that this was a band-wagon jumping beer of that ilk. Far from it.
This, as I've said, is a collaboration between Weird Beard, currently causing a buzz for producing some of the most sought after beers right now, and Elusive Brewing aka Andy Parker, home brewer turned commercial cuckoo-brewer in a very short space of time and all round nice chap to boot, and taking the Elusive Brewing name from his beer blog, Musings Of An Elusive Beer Geek. I'm a big fan of Weird Beard's offerings, having already reviewed two of their beers in this series already which you can read about here and here and in which you can find out a little about them and their brewery which they currently share with Ellenberg's Brewery, some of whose beers I'll be drinking and writing about very soon. If you follow either @WeirdBeard_Brew or @tabamatu on twitter then you'll already be familiar with this beer and how it came to be, suffice to say that as Bryan and Gregg are former home brewers themselves then they are attracting other former home brewers reaching out to a very appreciative wider audience to collaborate with. Expect one from a certain David Bishop from Nothern Monk Brew Co (#thenorthiscoming) very soon.
You can read all about this beer, the second in the Single Hop series, straight from Andy's blog here, so all that remains for me to do is drink it.
It pours a cloudy orange, like a citrus caramel, with a lemony yellow edge and a tight fluffy off-white head, very much as you would expect for the style. The aroma is tart with melon and grapefruit, kiwi and lime, with a sharp yeasty powderiness riding nicely alongside and interwoven with it. It's a little sticky over the tongue, flowing sweetly and gently leaving lime, cantaloupe, concentrated kiwifruit and strawberry juice, tangy with a hint of white pepper and a little tart, it's almost a little too sweet and cloying, almost ... but then it bursts and dries leaving a beautiful gooey mess of melon and caramel, sticky and delicious. It coats the back of the throat and the roof of the mouth with a beautifully oily citric syrup, this is a saison enhanced with a dank chewy finish, it's superb.
This is another beer that I picked up from Ales By Mail and when beers like this come in you have to be quick getting them. I certainly hope you do.