Blog Tracker
08-09-2011, 09:20
Visit the Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog site (http://boakandbailey.com/2011/09/08/saison-cracked/)
http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/moresaisondupont.jpg (http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/moresaisondupont.jpg)
After our recent pondering on the nature of saison (http://boakandbailey.com/2011/08/25/is-saison-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder/), several people, including Alan at A Good Beer Blog (http://beerblog.genx40.com/archive/2006/october/threemorebooks), suggested we read Farmhouse Ales by Phil Markowski (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Farmhouse-Ales-Craftsmanship-Tradition-ebook/dp/B002I5E43E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315467103&sr=1-1). Thanks for the tip, chaps. It’s a great book and has, indeed, helped us ‘get it’.
It’s in the same series as Stan Hieronymous’s (http://appellationbeer.com/) marvellous Brew Like a Monk (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brew-Like-Monk-Trappist-Belgian/dp/093738187X/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315467124&sr=1-1) and is designed to help home brewers understand the recipes and practices used by breweries currently producing biere de garde and saison. Even if you never intend to brew anything, if you love Belgian beer, these books are must-reads.
The centrepiece of Farmhouse Ales is an essay by brewer Yvan De Baets which attempts to summarise the history of saison and, crucially, explain what the heck it is. A key phrase occurs therein: saison, says De Baets, “has a small ‘wild side’”. He also cites a (primary) source suggesting that, in the late 1940s, saisons were very like what we would now call geuze.
At this point, something clicked for us. The idea of a spectrum with a point at which wild yeasts in the mix become evident makes a lot of sense, and also helps to explain why so many beers are described as “almost saison” or “saison like”. We slightly repurposed his phrase “wild side” and came up with this.
http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/wildsidediagram.jpg (http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/wildsidediagram.jpg)
Ultimately, of course, it’s up to a brewery if they wish to call their beer a saison, hence some of the lucozade-like sugary beers flying that flag, and the idea of precise categories in this territory is a bit silly, but a beer just on the wild side — that is, with at a hint of wild yeast or ‘roughness’ without being downright sour — is probably what we would now understand to be a saison.
Now to drink some more of them and test this new understanding.
More... (http://boakandbailey.com/2011/09/08/saison-cracked/)
http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/moresaisondupont.jpg (http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/moresaisondupont.jpg)
After our recent pondering on the nature of saison (http://boakandbailey.com/2011/08/25/is-saison-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder/), several people, including Alan at A Good Beer Blog (http://beerblog.genx40.com/archive/2006/october/threemorebooks), suggested we read Farmhouse Ales by Phil Markowski (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Farmhouse-Ales-Craftsmanship-Tradition-ebook/dp/B002I5E43E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315467103&sr=1-1). Thanks for the tip, chaps. It’s a great book and has, indeed, helped us ‘get it’.
It’s in the same series as Stan Hieronymous’s (http://appellationbeer.com/) marvellous Brew Like a Monk (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brew-Like-Monk-Trappist-Belgian/dp/093738187X/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315467124&sr=1-1) and is designed to help home brewers understand the recipes and practices used by breweries currently producing biere de garde and saison. Even if you never intend to brew anything, if you love Belgian beer, these books are must-reads.
The centrepiece of Farmhouse Ales is an essay by brewer Yvan De Baets which attempts to summarise the history of saison and, crucially, explain what the heck it is. A key phrase occurs therein: saison, says De Baets, “has a small ‘wild side’”. He also cites a (primary) source suggesting that, in the late 1940s, saisons were very like what we would now call geuze.
At this point, something clicked for us. The idea of a spectrum with a point at which wild yeasts in the mix become evident makes a lot of sense, and also helps to explain why so many beers are described as “almost saison” or “saison like”. We slightly repurposed his phrase “wild side” and came up with this.
http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/wildsidediagram.jpg (http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/wildsidediagram.jpg)
Ultimately, of course, it’s up to a brewery if they wish to call their beer a saison, hence some of the lucozade-like sugary beers flying that flag, and the idea of precise categories in this territory is a bit silly, but a beer just on the wild side — that is, with at a hint of wild yeast or ‘roughness’ without being downright sour — is probably what we would now understand to be a saison.
Now to drink some more of them and test this new understanding.
More... (http://boakandbailey.com/2011/09/08/saison-cracked/)