Saison & Biere de Garde tasting wrap-up

I think it’s fair to say the saison & biere de garde tastings this weekend were a great success!  Thank you so much to everyone who helped make these tastings happen:

• Rami, Nate, & Dave at Healthy Spirits for helping me pick out beers and bringing over some very tasty hummus.  See photo at right.: Rami, me, Nate. 
• Beth & Craig at City Beer Store for helping me pick out beers
• My roommates & building-mates for putting up with two-a-weekend tastings
• Gary & Diana Arsham for minding the home front when I ran out at last minute to pick up cups
• Rich Yazbeck for manning the camera Saturday night
• All the blog commenters who offered suggestions for beers to include
• All of the tasting attendees for indulging my obsession and showing up to taste and discuss new beers

We ended up running two tasting sessions to accommodate all 31 attendees:

• 13 attendees plus me on Friday, May 30^t
• 19 attendees plus me on Saturday, May 31^st - See photo at right

Each session tasted nine beers, with one substitution from Friday to Saturday.  Here’s the line-up:

1. Ommegang Hennepin (saison, American)
2. North Coast Le Merle (saison, American)
3. Lost Abbey Red Barn (saison, American)
4. Fantome La Dalmatienne (saison, Belgian)
5. Fantome Noel (saison, Belgian)
6. Rulles Estivale (blonde/wheat biere de garde, Belgian)
7. Lost Abbey Avant Garde (golden biere de garde, American)
8. Russian River Perdition (brown biere de garde, American)
9. Castelain Blonde (blonde biere de garde, French) - Friday only
10. Eisenbahn Lust (biere de champagne, Brazilian) - Saturday only

Yes, yes, I know I picked many American brews for a pair of styles in which a traditionalist might have gone Belgian and French.  However, I think these were the best choices given the selection available at local stores.  For some of the imports, e.g. Castelain, I was only able to pick up 3 bottles between both City Beer Store and Healthy Spirits, which is why it was a Friday-only beer. Plus, I wanted to show the range of these styles, rather than picking four of each that were almost indistinguishable, and if there is one thing at which American brewers are very good, it’s pushing the bounds of styles to create unique niches. 

As for the Eisenbahn Lust, that was a last minute addition to the line-up.  It was not meant as a true member of the tasting, but as a special toast to my friends Alexa and Dave.  They had RSVP’d a couple weeks ago for the Saturday night tasting, and then on the Wednesday before the tasting Dave proposed to Alex and the got engaged.  I figured what better way to celebrate than pouring a couple bottles to the tasting group so everyone could wish them a hearty congratulations.  The Eisenbahn was a little too syrupy-sweet for my taste, and I’m not sure it justifies the price tag except in novelty and celebratory value, but it was a fun beer with which to toast the new couple. 

We ran through the saisons from light to dark, with the Hennepin being the clearly lightest pick at a bright straw color, the Le Merle and Red Barn being a pretty similar golden tone, the La Dalmatienne being an orange-gold or light amber, and finishing with the medium brown Noel.  For an overview of both the saison and biere de garde styles, see this handout I prepared for the tasting. 

The two clear favorites in my mind were the La Dalmatienne and the Red Barn.  I can’t pick between the two because I’m not sure they were directly comparable.  They took the saison style down very different paths.  The La Dalmatienne was more candi sugar-y and caramel-y than any of the others.  It still had the fruit-forward flavors and spice of the other saisons, but I wondered if the richer, sweeter flavors it offered didn’t make it more of a saison-biere de garde hybrid.  I don’t think it sits solidly in one camp or the other, with the peppery spice and lack of ‘cellar’ character pulling it in the direction of a saison, and the noticeable malt presence and lack of typical saison dryness pulling it in the direction of a biere de garde.  In any case, whatever it is, I loved it. 

I’d give the Red Barn the win for best of the traditional saisons, hands down.  In fact, it’s quite easy for me to rank the three light saisons in order of preference: (1) Red Barn, (2) Le Merle, (3) Hennepin.  The Red Barn had just so many more layers of flavor than the Hennepin, and a bit more than the Le Merle.  Orange and lemon flavors swelled forward on the first part of the taste, beginning to alternate with just a slightly sour tang and mild spicy hop flavor from the Phoenix & Tettnang hops, and then ending with the peppery spice of the farmhouse yeast.  It was very smooth and well integrated, considering that they add orange peel, ginger, grains of paradise*, and black pepper to the brew.  Sometimes when additives are used in other beers, rather than relying on the quirks of the yeast or hops that suggested these flavor families originally, the additives stick out and demand to be noticed as individuals.  In the Red Barn, the flavors all work together to created a unified, complex taste profile.  It is a beer you could just as easily sit and savor, rolling it over your tongue to try to pick out the different elements, or drink by the less cautious mouthful on a hot summer day. 

*Grains of paradise are a West African seed with a peppery flavor that is sometimes compared to coriander or cardamom and often used in beers with citrus flavors to add spice and to give a warming sensation. 

The Fantome Noel was a great addition to the line-up given that it was such a different variety of saison than all of the rest.  It is a winter or Christmas-style saison, meaning that if you want to get strict about beer style classification, it is actually a Belgian Specialty Ale, a sister to the saison and biere de garde in the larger Belgian and French ale category.  I expected a beer with the nutmeg, cinnamon, or clove flavors that are usually prominent in Christmas beers.  While the Noel was a medium brown color, much like a spiced Christmas beer, it surprised me in that the spice profile was much more like a traditional saison, with just hints of Christmas spices.  The biggest difference from the traditional saisons was the beer’s smokiness.  Genelle hit it right on the head when she said it tasted like beef jerky.  I hadn’t yet tried it, and looked up at her from my pouring duties nervously, “As in, it tastes like beef jerky and that’s a good thing?  Or, as in, it tastes like beef jerky and that’s disgusting?”  Genelle, “Oh, no! I love beef jerky!  I make my mom mail me giant Costco packs of Oberto from Seattle, since I can’t get it here.  I like this!”  I liked it too, but I wonder if I wouldn’t have liked it more with a punchbowl spice profile making it Christmas-y, instead of the smokiness making it Christmas-y. It was interesting to taste how the smoke melded with the saison fruitiness, and to compare it to the La Dalmatienne in mouthfeel, since this one was did have the typical saison dryness. 

The biere de gardes were harder to compare to one another because each one had a very different color and body.  They are a relatively obscure style, originally from France, and somewhat difficult to track down.  As such, only the Castelain, of which I could only get 3 bottles, is a true French biere de garde.  The Avant Garde is still traditional in style, but made in America.  Both the Estivale and the Perdition are borderline biere de gardes, in that the first can potentially be called a witbier (a sister style to the biere de garde in the Belgian and French Ales category) or a Belgian pale ale (another sister style), while I’ve seen the second called a Belgian pale ale despite its brown color, a Belgian specialty ale (yet another sister style), or a brown ale. 

The Estivale was most interesting to me as a point of comparison to the other biere de gardes.  The wheat character of the beer was noticeable in the taste, lightening the body of the beer, and giving it the grainy flavor that made me think of pancakes or Pillsbury biscuits, just a touch sweet.  I would drink it in the same situations that I would choose a witbier, and if push came to shove, really I’d call it a witbier.  Not only does it have the mild herbal flavor of a wit, I don’t think it lived up to the biere de garde profile, in having wheat-y instead of toffee or caramel malt and in lacking woodsy funk. 

By contrast, I think the Perdition does fit well within the biere de garde style.  It did have the woodsy funk.  It did also have a prominent but soft malt character that was barley, not wheat, and somewhat caramel-y, though really a bit darker, with a touch of dark dried fruit, but drier than in Belgian strong dark ales.  I liked this best of the biere de gardes, but wasn’t as excited about any of the biere de gardes as I was about Red Barn and La Dalmatienne. 

The Avant Garde and Castelain were both representative of what we set out to try, but just not as interesting to me as some of the other styles of beer I’ve been drinking lately.  They didn’t have the funk of a Brett beer, the exceptional malt forwardness of scotch ale, or the peppery spice of the saison.  This isn’t their fault - they do what they meant to do very, very well.  I just couldn’t get too excited about it.  I wish that I had included the Jolly Pumpkin Oro de Calabaza instead of the Avant Garde, because it brings so much more funk that it treads the line between biere de garde and a sour, wild beer incredibly well, instead of staying safely but less interestingly within the biere de garde definition. 

Next Tasting Session:

I haven’t set either the date or the theme for certain yet, but I can give a tentative preview to everyone. 

Unlike the last three tastings, the June one will likely be on a weekday.  I need to move these tastings out of my apartment, as they’ve gown too big and the various restaurants, bars, and beer stores I’ve talked to about hosting the tastings can only accommodate a group like ours on a weeknight, likely a Sunday. 

Right now, the tentative date, subject to confirmation with the hosting venue is Sunday, June 29^th.  The host venue is completely up in the air right now. 

Though I’ve had a lot of fun with the Belgian-style beers the last two months, I don’t want to get stuck in a rut, so I am thinking that the theme of the next tasting may be off-beat IPAs.  I plan to look for breweries that do something unusual one way or another with their IPA, whether that means using rye malt, fermenting with a Belgian yeast, using a very unique hopping technique, or adding an oddball fruit or spice. 

I hope that those of you who came to the saison tasting can come again and that those of you who couldn’t make it can join us next time!