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Time & Tide Echo: tasting note

Tasted 2025-07 · pass

Not isolating

  • Isolate: none.
  • Why: Not of interest.

Echo bottle, Time & Tide: brown bottle with a gold crown cap and an orange label showing a cartoon bird with a propeller cap and a megaphone, text reading Time & Tide, Echo, Saison ABV 5.9% Echo, Time & Tide: saison, 5.9% ABV (from the label).

Pale, hazy golden beer in a stemmed tulip glass decorated with black running figures, with a loose white head In the glass.

Impression

Found in a garden centre, and it immediately caught my attention: I had never seen anything there other than traditional English beers and IPAs. The date on the bottle was 2017.

There were bottles with two different kinds of cap, so I got one of each, thinking they'd be ruined anyway. The first was totally flat and oxidised, and could not be drunk. The second had a cap with a plastic under-cap, which had obviously held pretty well.

Two crown caps, inside up: on the left a gold cap with a white plastic insert, on the right a silver cap with a flat white liner Left: cap with the plastic insert, which held. Right: the cap that failed.

That second bottle was actually quite good and interesting. I was expecting a bone-dry, funky beer with no phenolic character or hops. What I got was clearly an aged saison: pale, very dry, no signs of oxidation, minimal funk, no aroma hops but a lingering bitterness. Quite surprisingly for me, after about 8 years the beer had held up to the spicy, peppery and 4-VG flavours.

The beer

Researched 2026-11-08 from published sources (numbered below), not the author's own observations.

Item Finding
Brewing Barley and wheat; hops not stated for the barrel-aged version (a dry-hopped Echo used Vic Secret, Waimea and Ekuanot) [1][2]
Organisms Saison yeast and "a funky Brettanomyces blend"; strains not public [1]
Fermentation and ageing "Saison, aged on Burgundy barrel" [1]; red and white Burgundy versions were also released [3]
Packaging 375 mL bottle, 5.9 % ABV, unfiltered and unfined [1]; conditioning not stated

What it means for the bugs:

  • Brett should outlast the saison yeast in an unfiltered bottle of this age [Med].
  • The Burgundy barrel may have added residents of its own [Low].
  • Several versions of Echo exist; which one this 2017 bottle was is not recorded.

Sources: 1. Echo Bretted, 5.9% Bretted Saison, Time & Tide Brewing, accessed 2026-11-08. 2. Echo: Bretted Saison, Time and Tide Brewing, Eebria Trade (listing), accessed 2026-11-08. 3. Echo: BA Red Burgundy, Time and Tide Brewing, Eebria Trade (listing), accessed 2026-11-08.

The bugs

Sold as a bretted saison. Dregs not examined, no plating done.

Decision

Pass. Not of interest.