I’ve heard about this beer for well over a year now and I’m finally getting around to trying it. This one was calling to me — I just had to convince my local retailer it was well worth getting some on the shelf. Brooklyn Brewery Sorachi Ace is a Saison, or Belgian farmhouse ale. It’s brewed with sorachi ace hops, a relatively new and little-used hop variety created in Japan. Perhaps it will gain more popularity, and I think with good cause. I find that Japanese brews tend to be light and more on the sweet, fruity-funk side of beer, and Brooklyn Brewery’s use of this variety shows that there is great potential for this particular hop. Sorachi Ace pours a hazy, pale gold color. My first pour created a head that took up a third of the glass. The next, gentler pour didn’t do much better. Once the head settled down, it was an okay-looking beer. The head is persistent and leaves lots of lacing as it goes. The aroma is totally awesome: The Belgian yeast and citrus hop smells couldn’t mix any better. Sorachi ace is a hop variety with a very unique flavor and aroma profile. The most common comparison is lemongrass, which is not off the mark, but there’s more to it than that. There’s a lingering citrus-fruit component, sort of a melon that smells juicy and delicious. The sorachi ace hops play nice with the Belgian saison yeast, which imparts its usual somewhat funky, slightly peppery scents. The taste is very good but not too complex and doesn’t reach the heights of the aroma. It’s a solid saison and swallows smooth, similar profile to the aroma but more subdued, and with a new lemony flavor. It’s very dry and quite crisp. The body is light and a bit over-carbonated, as the head attests to. Easy to drink with very little alcohol taste. I’d think it would be cool to see more craft breweries work with sorachi ace hops. It gives a beer a certain something special and seems to be a great choice for Belgian styles. I’d love to try a sorachi ace tripel someday. I wouldn’t be surprised if I returned to my retailer only to find that the rest of this batch is already gone.