One more Sahti. Not ours but from a friend of ours. He has brewed something like ten to fifteen batches of Sahti during the last 1.5 years. I had a chance to taste one of his first Sahtis last Christmas. His brewing experience is relatively short but his final products have been tasty. This brew is dressed in murky, dark brown. The carbonation is, naturally, minimal. A hasty fawn lacing pops up on the surface and melts almost immediately away. Banana is hefty in the fragrance. A bit overripe but more actually fresh or just ripe. Dark chocolate and cookie join the dance thereafter. The sweet scent promises a lot also for the tongue. Banana is powerful on the tastebuds. Ripe but not fermented. Dark chocolate with a high cacao content is also surprisingly copious, escorted by a pinch of cookie. The hoppy sector is really narrow. Faint clove can be depicted but juniper is absent to me. The body is light-medium to medium. The ABV is fairly low for the style but the body holds up the package nicely. The flavor composition carries over to the end pretty unchanged. The mouthfeel is light-medium, lip-glueing, traditional, pastry-like and balanced. Due to the not-so-enormous ABV, this is easily gulpable.

And now the other Sahti, as a matter of fact,  batch #1. The ABV is higher. The color is like the Sahtis in the Eastern Tavastia region: impenetrable deep amber orange. The carbonation is basically dead in this edition: the opened bottle gives no hiss at all. And no head whatsoever can be detected. The difference in the fragrances is considerable: this is very fresh, fruity, loads of biscuit, apricot, orange pulp, mango, a smaller amendment of fresh banana, lemonade and a whisper of clove. I'm amazed! This is awesome!  🧡🧡🧡 The taste offers relatively sweet malt with loads of fruity nuances: fresh banana, mango, orange pulp, biscuit, lemonade, a sigh of honey and clove. Alcohol is beautifully camouflaged here, not a faintest tangy element lands on my tastebuds. The body is medium-full. Ends with a fresh fruity palate with some elements getting switched off though. The aftertaste levels off faster than that of the chocolate Sahti (Batch #2). The mouthfeel is medium-full, juicy, pulpy, intense, deep, rich and relatively classical. Definitely lip-glueing, even somewhat sticky and a tad thick. Astonishingly tasty! This guy is learning fast, this is better than almost any of our Sahtis.

Now more Sahti! In addition to our own Sahti, we have two different Sahtis brewed by a friend of ours. He has already brewed several Sahtis but I've had a chance to taste only one of them, yet. Now I have two at the same go. 👍🏻 These two batches are very different from each other. I will start with batch #2 because the ABV is substantially lower. This is a dark edition. Deep dark brown, murky, of course. Very little carbonation. Then, a flat still top. Dark chocolate hovers beautifully in the air. A little bit of chocolate cookie, dark malt and truly distant fermented banana join the olfactory experience. Dark chocolate and raw cacao powder dominate the taste substantially. Dark malt with a roasted dimension, chocolate cookie and brownie complete the odyssey of flavors. Banana is nowhere. All in all, relatively straightforward and enjoyable. The body is medium. Applaudable for this ABV. The finish is equally dark-chocolatey as upfront. Keeps the tastebuds alerted for a good while. The mouthfeel is medium, somewhat desserty, somewhat deep, straightforward but also characterful. Lip-glueing, as well. A solid experimental piece that deviates markedly from the traditional Sahti line. Nevertheless, I like the fact that since one of its building blocks is chocolate malt, it also delivers the flavor of chocolate big time. P.S. This seems to be my 200th Sahti. 🇫🇮🍻

Today some Christmas preparations before tomorrow's festivities. 🎄🎁 Sahti is an integral part of both. I have actually four different Sahtis for the Christmas time, three homebrews and one commercial. The first Sahti is a homebrew by a friend who is a recent sahti homebrewer. He has brewed several batches, this is the first edition I have a chance to taste. The color is murky, dark brown. Carbonation is virtually negligible as the style qualifications go. Just a few bubbles emerge for two seconds on the surface. The scent is malty and slightly tangy. I'm getting bags of malt, rye flour, a load of juniper twig and berry, a woody vibe and faint dark cookie. Characterful. Nice. The tastebuds receive sweet rye malt, dark barley malt, rye flour, banana and banana peel, a whisper of dark cookie and less ample juniper twig and berry than in the air. Still, the juniper is distinctly recognizable. The body is light-medium to medium. The finish gives juniper and rye, first and foremost, but also raw cacao powder and cookie right in their footsteps. The end remains for some time in the mouth. The mouthfeel is light-medium, quite soft and smooth as well as medium-strong. It's also rustic, mouthcoating and lip-glueing. This is a good example what the temperature does to the drink: I started with 3.5 because of the marginal sharpness but end up with 3.8 as the sensation rounds neatly over time.