The saison (the word means “season’’) is a unique style. Dry, often bitter, and sometimes hoppy, these golden ales have fruity notes but a tart finish, and their wine-like qualities help make them appealing, perhaps more so than any other style of beer, to oenophiles.
So why the sudden surge? For one thing, drinkers’ tastes are growing more sophisticated as the craft beer movement matures. Drinkers are branching out beyond IPAs and imperial stouts, exploring more Belgian styles. And brewers - some of them new start-ups that don’t even own their own equipment - are taking more risks, experimenting with styles that may not necessarily fly off the shelves.
“It’s been an unexplored style for a lot of brewers,’’ says Chris Lohring, owner of Notch Brewing, whose new saison came out this summer. “In the past, I’m not sure the consumer was really knowledgeable enough about saisons for there to be any real effort to put out a saison.’’
Bryan Greenhagen, owner of the new Mystic Brewery in Chelsea, whose first two beers are saisons, says he considers saisons to be a category of beers right alongside lagers and ales. “People like them because they’re almost a wine substitute,’’ he says. “They go really well with food. And they work at almost any temperature. They don’t have to be cold to be refreshing.’’
The style’s roots trace to 19th-century farms in the French-speaking part of Belgium, where the beer - whose original alcohol content was quite low, around 3 percent - was used primarily to hydrate workers, at a time when potable water was in short supply. No one is sure today what the original saisons tasted like - and they probably varied from farm to farm, and season to season - but today the saison made by Brasserie Dupont in Tourpes, Belgium, is considered the standard.
