Amber and clover, over and over: La Maison by Taxman Brewing Co.

My annual stop at Crown Liquors in Indianapolis was a bit disappointing this past August in that there were precious few lagers and no local brews really jumped out at me as being something that merited purchase. There just seemed to be more IPAs than ever before. I didn't drive several hours just to hang out with tens of thousands of stinky gamers and so I found something that I wouldn't ordinarily seek out. It was La Maison by Taxman Brewing Co.

Taxman does mostly Belgian styles or Belgian-inspired ones. Belgian beer is fine. Not my favorite but I am pro-Belgian. I mean, this is the country that gave us René Magritte and the guy who invented the saxamaphone. Methinks I had too many tripels and quads put before me and I found their astringency just a bit too much. I am more at home with a blonde or wit.

As if on cue to contradict myself, La Maison is called an "American Farmhouse-style Ale with Clover Honey". Well, so much for the Belgian predictions. It's is also described as a "tribute to the French farmhouse style" and since France is closer to Belgium than Indianapolis I think we're in the ballpark. Truth be told, I am unsure why I picked this one. Perhaps its 7% A.B.V. was a bit more potent than I normally partake in or maybe it was the addition of honey.

I will also admit I don't really know what a farmhouse ale is supposed to be like. Presumably they're brewed with whatever grains are lying around at the brewery just as the farmer brewers of old did. To me, they're fruity and funky.

I poured my La Maison into a tumbler that was given to me by a friend who felt sorry for this soon to be divorcé and the paucity of drinking glasses in his cupboard. I think the thick glass distorted the beer a bit. Refraction or not, I got a decent white head of loose foam that lasted an average amount of time, I'd offer. The beer was of a lovely light amber hue and was more or less clear. There were some bubbles inside.

The aroma was all over the map with a honeyed sweetness, bitterness, funk, a herbal thing, and a banana-led fruitiness. My first sip began well with a nice fizziness which helped moderate the medium body and a rather pronounced honeyed sweetness which could very well have been cloying. There was a piney bitterness which made me wonder if some Cascade hops helped make this an American ale. In addition, there was a big fruitiness that I tasted mainly as pineapple.

I am ambivalent on honey in beer. It can be used for good or for evil. Sometimes it lends a "dirty" earthiness to a beer and I do not care for it that much. Here, though, the honey was sweeter, brighter.

As I am accustomed to with Belgian ales, there was a prominent astringency to be had.

My notes pronounced this to be "good". It wasn't overly sweet nor was it heavy. Instead I found it to be fleet of flavor and nicely balanced with the piney-fruity flavors in harmony. While it may be 7%, it didn't taste like it was going to give my liver a pounding.

Junk food pairing: Grab a bag of Mrs. Fisher's Dark Jalapeño potato chips to go with your La Maison.

Just Like Matt Taibbi's Blues: Field Audit by Taxman Brewing Co.

As I mentioned previously, I spent some time in Indianapolis recently and my visit included a trip to a liquor store. In that post I relayed how I had snagged a six pack of Bier Brewery's Special Kölsch on the recommendation of a very helpful and friendly clerk who refrained from insults and profanity when I informed him of my dislike for IPAs of the American variety. Although eye rolls are impossible to display in text, my peepers were strained to their limit at the liquor store as I spied some Oktoberfest and a pumpkin ale on display even though August was not yet a week old. Well, next to these uncomfortably early seasonal beers was a display for Taxman Brewing Co. 

A friend and I had walked by their Indianapolis location on S. Delaware Street the previous morning and so I was keen to see what they brewed. While I would later learn that Belgian-style or Belgian-inspired beers are their forte, I never got that far because of the 4-packs on the top shelf of the display. My eyes basically stopped scanning for further info after reading "honey blonde ale with lavender and elderflower". Not one but two kinds of flowers in a beer?! That sounded right up my ruelle.

Taxman was founded in 2014 by a group of folks, a few of whom were accountants. Bean counting took at least a couple of them, Nathan and Leah Huelsebusch, to Belgium where they seem to have acquired a taste for the local barley pop. Hence the Belgian styles in the Taxman's portfolio. The original brewery is in a small Indiana town called Bargersville which is just south of Indianapolis. The Indy outpost that my friend and I traipsed by opened in 2019.

As noted above, this beer, Field Audit, is a honey blonde ale with lavender and elderflower. The latter in the form of St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur seems to be a fairly trendy cocktail ingredient these days so I am unsurprised to see it in a beer. In fact, my wife bought a bottle of the stuff after encountering it in her travels to some of the trendier cocktail destinations here in Madison. If I recall correctly, the St. Germain is still in our liquor cabinet where it sits uneasily next to a bottle of Malört. 

Personally, I think pairing elderflower with lavender is a stroke of floral genius as I adore this flower's scent as have people throughout the ages. For instance, it was like a dryer sheet in the Middle Ages as washerwomen would put clothes out to dry in fields of lavender.

While I am sure I have eaten lavender before, I can't think of when. But I am having chocolatey visions of truffles with small bits of the dried flower on top...Earl Grey chocolates from Gail Ambrosius. That's it! The idea of using flowers for flavor is attractive for me. I like it when brewers deviate from the hoppy norm. My only reservation going in here is that I am not the biggest fan of Belgian beers. At least the big trippels and quads. Just too astringent for my taste. Field Audit is 5.5% A.B.V. so I am expecting it to be quite palatable.

Whatever the flavor turned out to be, I was entranced by the beer's appearance. At the widest part of my glass, it appeared to be a deep, dark yellow - golden, perhaps. It appeared much lighter in that little dimple at the top of the stem, however. The aureate elixir was topped by a big head of loose foam which went away quickly, depriving me of a photo of the sudsy crown in all of its glory. The aroma had an unexpected lemony bit to it - the lactic acid kind you get with sour beers. Was this a sour beer? Nothing on the label to that effect. This scent was rather prominent but beneath it I caught a something floral and a hint of earthy honey.

A light body and moderate fizz were the first things I noticed upon tasting. Then I caught a little grain followed by the tempting flowers. It was rather sweet and my tongue noted an earthy honey flavor along with clovey-tasting phenols which became more pronounced as the beer warmed. I wasn't able to distinguish the lavender from the elderflower, mainly, I think, because I am not sure what the latter tastes like. To me, lavender has a prominent earthy component to it. It's not a sweet floral kind of deal.

On the finish, the sweetness and the floral taste slowly faded away leaving a 19 I.B.U. bitterness and just a modicum of dryness.

I liked Field Audit but need to register two complaints. First, the clove taste became almost overpowering as the beer warmed up. My tongue was not able to register the delicious floral flavors underneath. Which brings me to my second gripe: it needs more flowers. I wish the lavender and elderflower were more forward in the overall flavor scheme here. The beer doesn't need to taste like a mouthful of the bouquet I am going to buy my Frau for our wedding anniversary but I would like the floral taste to be stronger.

A good beer when cold so drink it fast before it gets too clovey.

Junk food pairing: Pair Field Audit with a bag of sweet & spicy chips from Indy's Broad Ripple Chip Co.