Bison Honey Basil:
Hello all and I hate to skip pleasantries and get right down to business but I wanted to set the stage for this beer and today’s review.  This review will be a difficult to write due to the way this beer has divided my sense of taste and the way I describe beers; so without further ado meet Bison.  Bison Honey Basil is an East Coast pick up, bought on a whim when I say that it’s a beer brewed with one ingredient that is uncommon and another that is in the brewing process.  The beer pours relatively weak, with a slim head that dissipates rather quickly and doesn’t leave much room for embellishment.  The nose is strong of basil and  herbs and a touch of malts, really it smells more of Carrabba’s kitchen than a beer, which isn’t a bad thing.  The taste of the beer is really un-beer like: tasting like I was drinking liquid focaccia bread than a beer which made me laugh since I called a beer in the past a liquid bread beer due to it’s heaviness but here I have another but this time based on flavor.  I couldn’t find the normal trilogy of flavor distinction on this one or, for that matter, two; just one flavor dominates this beer and it’s the basil.  Supposedly there is a sweetness of honey in it as well but I really couldn’t find that but I did taste and olive oil like flavor as an under tone to the basil (this could have been my mind playing tricks on me for craving Italian food while drinking).  I would really like to have another shot at this beer with a good Italian sampler meal in front of me to try some pairing choices…maybe some other time.  Well, I said this review divided me and it did, I love focaccia bread but really disliked the taste of the beer, mainly because it was unexpected and unusual.  I’d be willing to try again but not right now, I need to process this for a bit.