New Belgium Brewing - Lips of Faith-Peach Porch Lounger

New Belgium has been doing the Lips of Faith series for a few years now and some pretty amazing beers have come out of it. La Folie and Le Terroir are two of the best sours I've ever had and a few of the other beers in the series (especially Fresh Hop India Pale Ale) knocked it out of the park. There have, however, also been some misses along the way. Tart Lychee was a bit of a letdown as were Super Cru and Clutch. So it's always hard to tell if the next Lips of Faith is going to be amazing or a bit of a letdown. But the ideas New Belgium comes up with for the Lips of Faith beers are so original that I always have a hard time passing them up. The newest Lips of Faith beer, Peach Porch Lounger, just hit stores recently, so I decided to give it a shot.

Peach Porch Lounger is a collaboration with musician G.Love that features a pretty interesting list of ingredients. Listed as a saison, this beer features peach juice, molasses, hominy grits, lemon peel and Brettanomyces. Not a bad lineup at all. Now let's see how it works.

Peach Porch Lounger pours a glowing orange color with a one-finger foamy white head. The head showed pretty nice retention and left patchy rings of lace down the glass. I'm a pretty big fan of everything peach, so I really dug the smell, which was mostly an intriguing blend of earthy Belgian yeast and peach puree. I also picked up some faint traces of vanilla bean, lemon peel and banana bread. I really couldn't wait to try this beer.

...and then came the letdown. Expecting loads of ripe peach flavor, I was instead met with dense waves of Belgian yeast and an off putting metallic flavor. Clove, lemon seed and peach pit make a bit of an appearance towards the end, but they're held down by a mouthfeel better suited to a barleywine. The truth is, this just seems like too big of a beer for the ingredients. A peach saison sounds delicious, but when the alcohol is bumped up to ungodly heights (9.4% for a saison???) it creates a strange franken-brew that's borderline undrinkable. It's a shame, but I will have to file this one in the "miss" box. I'm still looking forward to the next Lips of Faith beer, though.

Final Grade: C-

Top 100 Beers Tasted: 39