What exactly is a Saison?
Ask ten brewers and you may get ten different answers. While Saison is widely recognised as one of Belgium's classic beer styles, its farmhouse origins and long history of interpretation make it surprisingly difficult to define.
In this article, award-winning beer writer Stephen Beaumont explores the origins of Saison, the role of yeast in shaping its character, and why this refreshing Belgian style remains one of the brewing world's most fascinating categories.
Of all the beer styles that are misconstrued by even many of those who brew them, Saison must surely rank among the most misunderstood. Although owing to the single style success of one particular brewery, Brasserie Dupont, it was not always thus.
In the 1980s and early ‘90s, Belgium was experiencing its transformation from a little-known beer-drinking nation to the global centre of brewing ingenuity,. Much of that newfound attention was driven by the work of beer writer Michael Jackson, whose influential books introduced generations of drinkers to Belgium's distinctive beer culture. At the same time, one brewery in particular, Brasserie Dupont, had become synonymous with Saison.
As a result, many drinkers came to view the style through the lens of a single beer: Saison Dupont. Because few people outside of the country knew anything about Belgian beer styles, neophyte beer aficionados took the legendary Bard of Beer at his word when he wrote that Saison was a “sharply refreshing, faintly sour, top-fermenting brew, sometimes dry-hopped, often bottle-conditioned, 5.5-8% by vol.”
Or, in other words, from the pages of Michael Jackson's Pocket Beer Book, the "sharp, refreshing attack (and) long, notably hoppy, dry finish" of Dupont's flagship beer.
If only defining Saison were that straightforward.
The origins of Saison
Translated from the French, the word ‘saison’ means season, although when and why the term became associated with the style is unknown. What is documented is that back when brewing was primarily an agrarian activity, it was pursued only during the cooler months of late fall, winter and early spring, after the harvest and before the planting, and when there were far fewer potentially fermentation sullying micro-organisms in the air.
What we now know as Saison had its origins in the southern, French-speaking part of Belgium known as Wallonia, although variations on the theme were common throughout Europe’s brewing regions, from the Bière de Garde of northern France to the Märzen of southern Germany. As legend has it, farmers would brew special beers in the winter for storing and serving throughout summer, with higher than usual hopping rates and elevated alcohol to help preserve them. Such beers, the story goes, would be given to farm labourers for hydration and nutrition while in the fields.
The problem is that giving 5.5-8% alcohol beers to men working with heavy and sometimes dangerous tools might not be entirely conducive to production, and as anyone who has spent an evening drinking such beers will know, there is little hydrating about imbibing strong ale. It is more likely, then, that such ‘field beers’ were rather lower in alcohol, perhaps more along the lines of what we now know as Grissette or the more obscure, lightweight lambic style variously called Maerts or Meerts.
Thus, while the brewing world widely acknowledges a single style of Saison, defined as per Jackson and Dupont, equal claim to the title may legitimately be made by such lighter interpretations as Dupont’s 3.5% Biolégère and Belgoo’s 4.4% Saisonneke Extra. These lower strength beers are sometimes referred to as ‘Traditional Style Saisons,’ with stronger versions dubbed ‘Contemporary.’
What defines a Saison?
What remains consistent across all strengths of Saison, however, is the defining element of refreshment. Whether higher or lower in alcohol content, a Saison should at its core be a thirst quencher, with sweetness kept to a minimum and sufficient hopping to make it, to borrow Jackson’s terminology, “sharp,” but not so much as to stray into Pale Ale or IPA territory.
As a warm fermented beer style, it is to be expected that a Saison should exhibit in its aroma and flavour some degree of ester profile, or fruitiness, but such qualities should not dominate either. Rather, if one were to pick a defining characteristic of the Saison style, it would be more a yeast-derived spiciness.
So important is the role of yeast in the making of a Saison that brewers have been known to lay claim to the style for any beer fermented with a ‘Saison yeast,’ regardless of its grist or hopping rate. Typically, such yeasts will be high attenuating and so contribute to the style’s signature dryness, but of equal importance will be also prone to producing spicy aroma and flavour elements, particularly those of black pepper.
(Note here that Saisons are typically not spiced beers, although some notable examples, such as Brasserie à Vapeur’s Saison Pipaix, do employ a proprietary blend of spices.)
In addition to the controlled Saison yeast, a growing number of examples of the style are being put through some degree of mixed fermentation, often but not necessarily with Brettanomyces. To a degree, this practice would be in line with the history of the style, as exposure to wild, airborne yeasts would have been fairly commonplace in nineteenth and early twentieth century farmhouse breweries, and as recently as the 1990s, Saison Dupont and other Belgian Saisons still bore a hint of wildness, as evidenced by Jackson’s comment about the style being “faintly sour.”
Even if a clean fermentation had been achieved on the farm, the storage of the beer in wooden barrels during the summer months would have exposed it to numerous possible contaminants, including Brettanomyces.
The grain most used in modern Saison brewing is Pilsner or Pale Ale malt, with a pale gold colour being the target. In a nod to when malting techniques were not as precise as they are today, some brewers view a light amber or orangey hue as classic to the style and so add a touch of Munich or Vienna malt to their grist in an attempt to emulate that colour.
As farms would typically have grown grains other than just barley and wheat, it is thought that untraditional brewing grains might commonly have made their way into the grist. For this reason, it is not unusual to see such atypical grains as buckwheat or spelt appearing in modern Saisons like Brasserie de Silenrieux’s Joeseph and Brasserie de Blaugies’ Saison d’Epeautre.
Unsurprisingly given the style’s Belgian origins, European hops such as Kent Goldings of English and Belgian origin and Styrian Goldings are most commonly used, although even some Belgian brewers, including Blaugies and Brasserie de Jandrain-Jandrenouille, have been know to experiment with more assertive New World hops. (This practice is, for obvious reasons, more commonplace in North American breweries.) As earlier noted, a moderate hop character of 20 to 30 IBUs is the classic goal, although some contemporary examples do stray higher. Dry-hopping is optional and much more common in non-Belgian examples of the style than it is in Belgian ones.
Water profile is a contributing factor to the dryness typical of both the traditional and contemporary Saison profile, with a high mineral content (hardness) being both characteristic of the well water farmhouse brewhouses in Wallonia would have used and a significant contributor to perceived dryness and enhanced hop character.
Given that acknowledged Belgian champions of the Saison style might be low or high strength, spiced or unspiced, made from pure Pilsner malt or Pilsner combined with other grains, and be moderately or even highly hopped, tasters sampling Saisons should be prepared for and open to a wide range of aromas and flavours. The key components that bring it all together, however, are dryness, refreshment, high carbonation, spiciness and notable hop bitterness.
After that, desirability is up to the taster’s preference and the brewer’s skill and intent.
About the author:
Stephen Beaumont is a veteran beer and spirits writer and author or co-author of fifteen books, including three editions of The World Atlas of Beer (with Tim Webb) and The Beer & Food Companion.
