Saison ( French, "season," ) is a pale ale that is highly carbonated, fruity, spicy, and often

bottle conditioned Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brew ...

. It was historically brewed with low alcohol levels, but modern productions of the style have moderate to high levels of alcohol. Along with several other varieties, it is generally classified as a

farmhouse ale Farmhouse ale is an ancient European tradition where farmers brewed beer for consumption on the farm from their own grain. Most farmers would brew for Christmas and/or the late summer work, but in areas where they had enough grain farmers would u ...

History

'Bière de saison' is first mentioned in the early 19th century. It was most widely known as a beer from the industrial city of Liège, where it was brewed by professional breweries as a keepable version of the city's spelt beer that had been produced for a few centuries. It was made with malted spelt, unmalted

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

and only a small amount of barley malt. It was typically brewed in winter and drunk after four to six months. While Liège's saison disappeared after the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, it continued to be brewed, generally as a barley-only beer, by professional breweries in the province of Hainaut, who sold it as a 'cuvée réservée' luxury beer, which was 'to be served at room temperature like a good wine' and 'to be poured with care'. In the late 1980s,

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

importer Don Feinberg was urged by beer writer

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...

to import

Brasserie Dupont Dupont Brewery (in French: ''Brasserie Dupont'') is a brewery in Tourpes (Leuze-en-Hainaut), in western Hainaut, Belgium. Founded in 1950, it is on a working farm which dates back to 1759 and has significant brewing history. In the 1990s, a bre ...

's saison to the United States. It was Feinberg who re-styled saison as a 'farmhouse ale':'' 'People asked: is it a wheat beer? Is it a lambic? I told them it was a hoppy farmhouse ale.' '' Saison's reputation was further cemented by Phil Markowski's 2004 book ''Farmhouse ales'' and has since become a popular beer style worldwide. It was however only these developments in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s that cemented saison's reputation as a 'farmhouse ale': in older sources it is never indicated as such and though there has been a limited tradition in Belgium of brewing on farms or brewing for farm workers, it seems to have been conflated with saison only from the 1980s onwards.Roger Pinon, ‘Recettes de bières de ménage en Wallonie et subsidiairement en Picardie’, in: Studium et museum. Mélanges Edouard Remouchamps, volume I, Liège 1996, p. 103-122. Modern saisons are not exclusively brewed seasonally anymore. Generally they are highly carbonated, fruity and spicy — sometimes from the addition of spices.

Composition

The type of malt determines the color of the saison, and although most saisons are of a cloudy golden color as result of the grist being mostly pale or

pilsner Pilsner (also pilsener or simply pils) is a type of pale lager. It takes its name from the Bohemian city of Plzeň (german: Pilsen), where the world's first pale lager (now known as Pilsner Urquell) was produced in 1842 by Pilsner Urquell Bre ...

malt, the use of darker malts results in some saisons being reddish-amber. Some recipes also use

. Spices such as orange zest, coriander, and ginger may be used. Some spice character may come through due to the production of

ester In chemistry, an ester is a compound derived from an oxoacid (organic or inorganic) in which at least one hydroxyl group () is replaced by an alkoxy group (), as in the substitution reaction of a carboxylic acid and an alcohol. Glycerides a ...

s during fermentation at warm temperatures. Modern examples brewed in the US tend to copy the yeast used by the

Dupont Brewery Dupont Brewery (in French: ''Brasserie Dupont'') is a brewery in Tourpes (Leuze-en-Hainaut), in western Hainaut, Belgium. Founded in 1950, it is on a working farm which dates back to 1759 and has significant brewing history. In the 1990s, a bre ...

, which ferments better at warmer temperatures like than the standard fermenting temperature used by other Belgian ales.

References

;Bibliography * ''All About Beer'' Magazine, Volume 24 Number 4, September 2003 * ''The Beers of Wallonia'', John Woods and Keith Rigley, Stourside Press (1996), *

External links

A seasonal search for the phantom of brewing

, BeerHunter.com {{Beer Styles Beer styles Beer in Belgium