The Curious Case of the "Clean" Saison
A longstanding resolution I’ve held is to follow up on my Craft Beer & Brewing stories with more discussion about the topics I covered here. I usually capture a ton of stuff I can’t fit in the article, and I often have comments that weren’t quite on topic for the article, but which deserve to be seen. That’s true of the latest column.
My latest “Style School” column has worked its way to the online portion of Craft Beer & Brewing. The first of a two-parter on saisons, it tackles the “clean” half of the equation—those beers made with straight ale fermentations, with no funny (or funky) business. As a historical matter, these were really the only extant examples still being made in Belgium when Americans discovered them—and still by far the most common in Belgium.
By some kind of strange serendipity, at about the moment I was putting the finishing touches on that article, Breandán Kearney interviewed Brasserie de la Mule’s Joël Galy for the Belgian Smaak podcast, and Breandán touched on this very issue.
“The other thing I notice about the US., Canada, the North American interpretation of saison—which is not incorrect—but they really embrace, more than the Belgian brewers, the history of it and the romanticism of it, the farm stuff. [That] gives them an excuse, or points them in the direction of like mixed fermentation a lot of the time.”
He’s totally correct about this. We have two vastly different styles of beer in the U.S. called “saisons,” and it seems like the mixed-fermentation versions are winning the war—over the name, at the very least.
Breandán continues with his description of this curious case of the two saisons.
“So you have this kind of lactic acid bacteria and some of the saisons even have Brett in them and stuff like that. Whereas here, if you look at the market of top 20 selling saisons in Belgium, they're all clean, phenolic, like 5.5 to 6.5% ales. They're not super-characterful mixed fermentation beers. And I just think that's sort of the Americans, that it's not a criticism, but it's just like they've been lost in the Romanticism [of] Belgium. It's like, no, this is actually what's on the market here.”
To add an additional interesting wrinkle to this, it’s worth noting that the mixed-fermentation “saisons,” which are meant to evoke the old, farm saisons, aren’t actually a continuation or a restoration of an old brewing tradition, but a romantic reinvention. In Belgium, saisons like Saison Dupont became pure-Saccharomyces ales organically. Brewers in Belgium began making them that way in the 20th century, after true farmhouse ales went extinct. They may not taste like the beers made by 19th century farmers, but they are the genuine inheritors of an unbroken lineage of brewing within Belgium.
To my disappointment, the modern “clean” Belgian saisons have utterly failed to find a commercial market in the U.S. it’s really a shame, because they are wholly unique in the beer world, and they demonstrate the greatest potential of Saccharomyces strains to express themselves. Indeed, there was always plenty of romance in those modern saisons, which remain one of the most funky, characterful of beers out there.
“For American brewers familiar with Dupont or Vapeur, saison looked like a playground for anything nonindustrial: unmalted wheat, spelt, rye, old hop varieties, additional ingredients such as herbs, spices, or fruits. And that yeast! It was the most Belgian of all the Belgian strains, with prominent phenols, plumes of fruity esters, and occasional musty funk or acidity that hinted at something wild…. Americans fell in love with the style because it was the antithesis of homogenous industrial beer, and they wanted to capture some of its story in the glass.”
Clean saisons—or just saisons—are one of my favorite beer styles, and I love it when breweries take them seriously. They are, nevertheless, a hard beer style to wrap your brain around—even if you’re Belgium. In my article, I spoke to Brussels-based Yvan De Baets and Belgian-born Steven Pauwels, and they both struggled to nip and tuck saison into a particular style with clear parameters. (De Baets offered a quote that became the article’s title: Saisons are “something you feel.”)
In this picture, Yvan De Baets may actually be pouring a Senne saison/
Alex Ganum at Upright.
But one brewer, Upright’s Alex Ganum, did give me his thoughts, and because he makes possibly the best saisons in the world, I thought I’d pass along our entire exchange. If you want to make a good saison, these notes are a great place to start—they capture both the technical aspects as well as the spirit of saison.
I began by asking how he thought saisons differed from other Belgian styles, like a Belgian pale. Note that not only did he offer a pretty technical description, but a taxonomy that breaks all Belgian ales into three categories. I had never thought of this, but it makes sense:
It’s a somewhat blurry line which will lead into the next question, but yeast profile is huge here. When I think of Belgian ales against each other, my mind breaks them up into abbey-esque, farmhouse/saison, and wild/acid driven beers. Those three encompass a lot of what we get to try (in this country). All three of these have their own enormous range but are mostly distinct from one another by yeast or whatever is doing the fermenting in the case of the wild beers.
In the case of saison, you have yeasts which may share some similarities with abbey strains like being ester and phenol-forward, but the abbey strains tend to follow a more narrow profile, particularly on the ester front. Saisons yeasts may show a little bubblegum, banana, pear, but don't seem to lean into the dark fruit (cherry, plum. etc) zone that you'll find with abbey yeasts, and I often find the esters in saisons to be much more diverse and better integrated into the overall beer profile, while abbey beers use esters as a more central aspect. Going back to your question more specifically, what's the difference between a saison and a Belgian pale? Yeast.
Next I asked about “rusticity” and how this term related to saisons. He offered a pretty good description of how to think about and construct a saison.
I love rusticity as a term; it says so much and is one of the most appealing elements of saison. Another (albeit vague) way to look at it is character. Just about everything that goes into producing the beer will play into [that character]:
Grist. Does the beer have raw grains for flavor and body? Whether it does or doesn't, does the grist provide a full flavor versus a more neutral profile? A beer like the Elani for instance (or many other similar beers we've made over the years) will have some wheat if nothing else, and without it the beer might still taste great, but will likely miss out on some rusticity.
Yeast. This is harder to explain as yeast is so nuanced, but what we'd be looking for to achieve rusticity is something that may contribute:
earthiness or help to draw herbal/earthy character from the other ingredients
a mineral forward, dry finish
pleasant spicy character
a broad spectrum of esters
a slight twang, like a weisse strain typically does. Good saisons yeasts do all or most of these things.
Other contributors to rusticity are whatever lends character, and part of rusticity (in a saison context) can also be avoiding a singular note, where the ingredients are grossly outcompeted by the fermentation profile. I think rusticity often avoids novelty. But being saison, there are no strict rules and plenty of exceptions. For instance our Saison Vert has tons of black lime in the nose, but a lot of the other elements listed above are still there, just in less balance. Spices or alternate ingredients like the black limes can be great additions and ultimately the vision for the beer lies with the brewer. When we're trying to do something more delicate than the Vert, I'll add some ingredients earlier in the boil to help layer flavors and keep them from sticking out too much despite seeing very few recipes indicating anything other than whirlpool additions for spices.
Finally, I asked what the word “saison” conjured in Alex’s mind. By way of comparison, Yvan told me in 2019: “Honestly, it’s very difficult to explain to someone else because we always have our own definition. For me it’s more like an absence of cleanliness—but even that’s not a definition. It’s something you feel.” Here’s Alex’s cut at that question, and again, I think it’s accurate and evocative.
Individuality and expression! Also practicality/regionality, essentially using what you have available, or what makes sense. The style has a lot of leeway, which affords brewers to go in so many directions. Do you happen to have a grain or hop that turns you on - work your recipe around it!
Not sure if I ever shared this story, but back when we were running Old Salt, our hog rancher kept bugging me about using his triticale, which was the animal feed. He grew it himself and was proud of the quality, but I dismissed it early on thinking, ‘How good can animal feed be? ‘Well, that was dumb, because he eventually just dropped off a bag and it turned out to be incredible (which probably explained part of why his pork was delicious). So we asked him for a pallet and worked it into the Five for about a year or so.
I often conclude these posts with an exhortation for breweries to make more of whatever style it is I’m discussing, but I know that’s a fool’s errand with saison. But by good, buy them when you see them in a taproom—that might encourage brewers to make them at least occasionally.