I had the pleasure of trying another one of AmandaK's beers this past Saturday. For starters, the beer blew my SWMBO and I away. The beer was a nice light brown in color, like a mid range, maybe around 18srm ish. There was little to no hop aroma or flavor. The aroma and taste was all dark, fruity flavors, hard for me to put a name to them. There was definitely a good deal of maltiness to the brew that really did not come off as sweetness, just malty goodness. I got no sense of alcohol warmth at all in aroma or flavor. This was a very smooth drinking, refreshing, delicious beer. Amanda says it was the result of a club group brew where there were different groups to each come up with a recipe to fit the theme of "Imperialize It." Her group chose to imperialize a saison. Her notes to me when I was confused about what I was tasting said that it was over 2 years old, and had been hot and boozy when young, but really coming into its own. 3711 took the 1.113OG down to 1.009 for well over 13%. I let her know that to me, it drinks like an aged barleywine in maltyness, or perhaps a doppelbock as there was no noticeable hop characteristics that I could detect. This beer was nothing like what I would have expected from a 13% saison(but only because of my pre-conceived notions of what the BJCP says a saison should be) but it was wonderful to drink. If she had sent me 6 bottles of this, and no other homebrews, the swap would have been well worth it. Instead, I got one of these and many other of her wonderful, award winning homebrews. Last up to the plate will be her Wedding Toast Brew, that will have to wait for the weekend (750ml bottle.) thanks again @AmandaK this swap was a great experience for me.
ps, Amanda was also kind enough to include some of her brewing notes for the 13+% saison that I have already entered into beersmith as something I would love to brew, in other words, my scoresheet would have ended with "I want the recipe for this brew!" Welll done @AmandaK!
pps: forgot that there is also a Crooked Stave "Surrette(?)" to try still as well