Second review of this Sahti. I reviewed this 8 days ago. I won't re-assess this in detail now but rather see how the product has developed as this is a living brew that changes constantly. This is now one month old and should therefore be at its best. The color is less dark now. What a surprise! It's deep raisin brown. The nuances of sweet malt and banana have taken the leading position in the scent albeit they still aren't particularly powerful. The taste is softer and fuller although not yet full as such. The various components seem to be unchanged with the small but welcome exception of the soapy off-flavor having died. Yesh!! 👍🏻 The body is still weaker than I was hoping. The finish is identical to the previous assessment. The mouthfeel is also pretty much the same but the alcoholic touch is now almost nonexistent. So in a nutshell, this has improved a bit, particularly in a slightly softer direction. That's the way it should be. Nevertheless, there still must be something different from batches #001 and #002 due to dryness. Studying of the nautical chart must hence continue.

Hoppy Friday to all! 🍻 The weekend in the countryside is kicked off with our third batch of Sahti. The Sahti pours lucid, very dark brown. I didn't quite anticipate such a dark color... The carbonation is nearly nonexistent as the style goes. A faint, beige ring of bubbles orbits on the top and dies then out. The scent displays rather sweet malt, a bit of biscuit, fermented banana and dried apricot. Reasonably familiar Sahti nuance but somewhat bland and less powerful than our two previous batches. 🤔 Ok, let me take a sip. The first gut impression is that the mellow softness and lip-glueing sweetness are substantially less prominent than in our earlier batches. The gustatory components include medium-sweet malt, part of which is recognizeably rye, a small injection of fermented banana and slightly bitter banana peel. I can also pick a biscuity aroma as well as a distant pungent soapy whisper. The source of the latter is unknown and, as everyone can imagine, unwelcome. Fortunately it's really transient only. The taste experience is, however, clearly weaker than what I'm used to and was hoping for. 🤔🤔 The body is medium at maximum. This is also a deterioration from the two first batches. Yet, the ABV is 7.9 %, a bit higher than 7.5 % of Maiden Voyage (= batch 1) and 7.2 % of Navigation Puzzle (= batch 2). The beer finishes with fermented banana, bitter banana peel, a malty punch and a modest alcoholic note. The aftertaste loses direction and gets lost in the Finnish primeval forest together with the tastebuds for some time. The mouthfeel is lip-glueing but not truly sticky. It's also remotely alcoholic, a bit dry, faintly pungent and satiating. Fullness is unfortunately absent. Overall, this is by no means bad but falls clearly short of my expectations. This is something that I have had a few times by commercial breweries that are not experts in brewing Sahti. Navigation is not necessarily always easy although the map remains the same. We used pretty closely the same recipe but our brewing method had some differences to the previous batches; the biggest deviation being the higher mashing temperature. It's something we learned from the internet and is not followed by the local Sahti Master. It goes without saying that we will abandon that method and return to the tested method that we learned from the local Sahti Master a year ago. Recalibration of the course and the sailing continues.