Saison Through History...

Nothing even comes close to getting my nips as diamond hard as when a brand spankin' new barrel aged saison fermented with souring bacteria appears on my Facebook feed. Reading that the new, fitter adaptation of the classic Goonies flick surprisingly hadn't as much of a joyful impact on me as "Americanized" farmhouse ales have had in the past is quite telling*. When I hear "saison" in conversation or simply read the word in a beer thread, my mind immediately floods with memories of tart, bittersweet wild ales with an undertaste of pronounced hops and oak. This is the saison that most know and already familiarize with: the Americanized concept of taking the style that Belgium made popular and making it bone-dry and taking away some of their delicious malt oomph but also adding a playful acidic bite to the mix. The biggest difference with the Belgium biere de saison, and moreover with the Wallonian biere de saison, that got its start as a farm worker ale -- a beer that farm workers in the region could drink unabashedly after working from sunrise to sunset without getting instantly plastered and blacking out-- was that these styles weren't exactly designed with brett in mind. Instead, spices and keeping the ale pretty evenly balanced in terms of flavor and strength had been its storied descriptor. For years all a saison was, was something that farm workers brewed, or, rather, brewed with the help of farms: it was a catchall term that didn't have any authentic definition until Dupont said, "This is a saison - LISTEN TO ME, I'M IMPORTANT!" and everyone was like, "Yeah, okay, good enough for me." It even makes sense seasonally: their grain crops would be ready for harvest in Autumn, and generally would be fermented throughout the winter. Refrigeration wasn't really a thing yet so having the beer designed to keep workers strong whilst working on the farm, would totally suck if the wort spoiled in the hot summer months. I belong to several high profile Facebook groups whose sole purpose is to discuss, recreate (in terms of brewing), and fanboy the fuck out for sour beer styles. Frustratingly, however, a healthy 80-85% of these groups' topics are posts that only deal with bringing up soured saisons and how many a member would happily walk across traffic to get the new bottle of some utterly pretentious farmhouse thing that just dropped. Understandably, making the leap from slightly estery, clovey, grainy easily drinkable hard-to-pin-down Belgium ales that weren't customarily barred aged or even introduced to wood for a good hundred years, to America's version which loves all things fruit, every conceivable brettamyces strain, all hops that have ever been named, and as many different types of wood as possible, was perhaps easy in some minds. We don't see a wild Hefeweizen..that sounds horrendous if that exists. That's probably the reason. I'm joking; but where the Wallonian style was seemingly more concerned with actually having grain, it comes across hugely in its flavor - a Belgium saison likes to embrace the grain in it tenfold or that's what it has shown to me.
What kind of saison do you like best? The original Biere de saison which was mildly different depending on the farm that brewed it, but centered around drinkability, balance, and that subtly classic Belgium spice character.
Or the American variation which lovingly made the beer way more acidic, alcoholic and winelike, even utilizing wine barrels to age some of its releases, and adding as much fruit as their friend's fruit farm could muster.

*Goonies is a fun movie, but I don't think I'd ever watch it just because. It's hot garbage and you all know it. Maybe you don't... if that's the case: Goonies is hot garbage. It doesn't do anything that older better movies haven't already done. Ugh

TL;DR: What kind of saison do you like most?

TL, DR: rants with an historical build-up like this and an added FAQ deserve more attention.

I find myself preferring low-abv saison which nowadays often turn out as UK grisettes (Kernel, Partisan, Brew by Numbers).

Ironic, since grisette all but by name died out in the Belgian brewscape. Much like saison would have without the US importer's interest in Dupont, while Belgians were mainly interested in Moinette.
Otherwise partial to Blaugies and dirty Fantome.

Also interesting: if you take saison at its socio-economic word, Dupont, Blaugies, Erpe-Mere and Vapeur are the best farmer's-bang-for-your-buck. All others are basically gentrified saisons, a category I use for all those clean BA saisons that have been put in wine barrels and end up costing €15/liter.

Goonies is certainly hot garbage and thanks for making this thread.

It's been hard for me to be okay with this New American Saison... You make a good case for saison being about grain but the classics for me were about elements of grain that were not simply malt sugar, caramels, Maillard characteristics. There was this softness, this rural charm, a balance between malt and warm/hot fermented yeast contributions, at that more earthy quality of subtle dirty funk.

Saison has been so abused as to become not only meaningless but has made me question my touchstones. Dupont is nothing like it was 15 years ago for instance. Or is it?

I am so looking forward to getting those flavors back. Those running next to dried grasses in dry soil and over crunching Fall leaves aromas. The subtle phenol that is a two-day old cut under a Band-aid sprayed with Bactine when it happened and not like drinking cough medicine. It's a tiny slice of baked unspiced apple made even more subtle by being washed with water. It's wood. It's earth. It's warm wind. It's stillness.

Saison for me too is about more than subtlety but also moderation. A worker's beer. A thirst quencher. A beer you can enjoy by the liter. A beer that's unafraid to be at more revealing temperatures and lesser acidities.

Man, it would be nice to identify some trusted saison tasters and highlight recent saisons of promise.

I'm mostly familiar with American Saison, only because I hated every Saison I tried until I had one by Sante Adarius, which was aged in a wine barrel. That beer opened up a whole new world for me, brought me out of IPA and stouts and its impact on my palate has made me venture into other styles I thought I didn't like. As it turns out, bastardized American Saison tastes SIGNIFICANTLY better than Saison Dupont, regardless of its historical impact on the style. Otherwise, Saison to me just tastes like a spritzy hefeweizen. SARA/Triple Rock Cellarman has had the biggest impact on my trying new beers, more than any other beer I've had to date, and I doubt I can top it.

Originally posted by ebone1988
As it turns out, bastardized American Saison tastes SIGNIFICANTLY better than Saison Dupont, regardless of its historical impact on the style. Otherwise, Saison to me just tastes like a spritzy hefeweizen.

Originally posted by ebone1988
SARA/Triple Rock Cellarman has had the biggest impact on my trying new beers, more than any other beer I've had to date, and I doubt I can top it.

Originally posted by joet
Man, it would be nice to identify some trusted saison tasters and highlight recent saisons of promise.

Originally posted by SinH4

Originally posted by ebone1988
As it turns out, bastardized American Saison tastes SIGNIFICANTLY better than Saison Dupont, regardless of its historical impact on the style. Otherwise, Saison to me just tastes like a spritzy hefeweizen.

Hm, interesting. I had Saison Dupont on tap in a Munich place recently and it tasted like a bad Hefeweizen. That place doesn't know how to take care of its taps though. From brown bottles, I have never been disappointed. But then again, I don't know what would be bad about the flavours of Hefeweizen.

Originally posted by ebone1988
SARA/Triple Rock Cellarman has had the biggest impact on my trying new beers, more than any other beer I've had to date, and I doubt I can top it.

Cellarman is one of the best American Saisons to date, indeed.

Originally posted by joet
Man, it would be nice to identify some trusted saison tasters and highlight recent saisons of promise.

Joris!

Originally posted by ebone1988
I'm mostly familiar with American Saison, only because I hated every Saison I tried until I had one by Sante Adarius, which was aged in a wine barrel. That beer opened up a whole new world for me, brought me out of IPA and stouts and its impact on my palate has made me venture into other styles I thought I didn't like. As it turns out, bastardized American Saison tastes SIGNIFICANTLY better than Saison Dupont, regardless of its historical impact on the style. Otherwise, Saison to me just tastes like a spritzy hefeweizen. SARA/Triple Rock Cellarman has had the biggest impact on my trying new beers, more than any other beer I've had to date, and I doubt I can top it.

I like to think that I can be partial to both the new school American versions, with brett and bacteria, as well as the old school stalwarts that made the style what it's "supposed" to be today.

The new school ones offer a broader range of complexity, with more layers and depth, than the old school ones do. Hill Farmstead, Holy Mountain, OEC, and Anchorage are doing great things with this. Don't get me wrong, a good old school one, that is about 2-4 months in bottle, is pretty darn tasty. Blaugie, Jester King, and Saint Somewhere are solid, with nods to Birds Fly South and Burial for keeping it grounded.

But for me I like the lightness and crisp funk of a nicely done Grisette are what I feel myself gravitating more toward. Fonta Flora, Creature Comforts, and Green Bench have all made fantastic ones.

A saison is whatever you want it to be. Whatever you focus on as being, for you, something you identify with a beer named saison, is what it'll be. If what you want is high temperature esters, that's what you'll be looking for. If they're not there, or not enough there, you'll be disappointed. Is that a fault of the brewer, the saison description on the beer, or your own expectations?

Expecting too much of a beer descriptor can lead to brewers simply copying each other for fear of diverting too far from people's expectations and disappointing them.

I'd rather follow a brewer than a style descriptor. I have found that if there's a brewer I like (or dislike) then my experience with that brewer will tend to follow a more narrow path than with following a beer style descriptor. What I mean is, if I like Brewer A's saison, then I am likely to enjoy Brewer A's porter. But it doesn't follow that I would like Brewer B's saison.