I never did the whole "studious" thing in High School, which means I depended a lot on Make up Work to make the grade. It looks like that old mentality has reared it's ugly head here on my blog, I've missed a few months worth of posts now. Shame on me. I do hope you'll accept these next week of consecutive daily posts as a reparation for my laziness.
I'll take this first opportunity to talk a little about a style of beer that has a wide appeal both here in the central Iowa as well as the world over (not to mention within my household). Roughly Half the batches of homebrew I've made could be categorized in some degree as Saison so it's a style I've got a little experience with.
Saison beers were originally low gravity beers for farm hands in the Southern half of Belgium. They've certainly been refined but many are still very rustic in nature. One thing that has sure changed about a lot of these beers is the gravity, while originally these thirst quenchers rarely hit 5% abv, it's not uncommon to see them as high as 8% abv anymore. Saison is usually a blonde to amber colored beer, moderately hopped, and very dry. Sometimes they're spiced & sometimes they are sour, but the common thread is their yeast character and their dryness.
Saison has enjoyed a bit of a surge in popularity in the United States here within the last decade. Saison Dupont has become the classic of the style for Americans named consistently as "one of the best beers in the world" by countless publications. Stateside examples have flourished in popularity including brands like Ommegang's Hennepin, Jolly Pumpkin's Bam Biere, and North Coast's Le Merle. A little closer to home Kansas City's Boulevard Brewing has given us their trio of Saisons heralded as some of the finest examples brewed on this side of the pond. But you need not look so far south for local offerings in the Saison tradition. I wanted to take a look at three breweries round these parts that are taking this style and putting their own unique twist on it.
I'll be the first to admit that when Joe the brewer at Peace Tree told me he had made a Saison using sweet corn I had to bite my tongue from rudely laughing. Such is the skill and the charm of Iowa's newest native brewery that they could indeed pull it off. Really though, it wasn't a question of "pulling it off" as I suppose putting it that way makes it sound like under extraneous circumstances they produced a passable product. I rather ought to call this beer a triumph, as the end product is a very true to style Saison in spite of one particularly non traditional ingredient.
Cornucopia employs the house yeast strain from Brasserie Dupont, this being one of the most definitive and popular yeast strains used in the style. The only character of corn in the beer comes in the aroma as along with spicy, floral, and bready aromas classically associated with Saison there is an earthy green aroma akin to that of dew soaked corn stocks, the aroma of which will not be left unidentified by the drinker who has spent even one summer of his youth detassaling. It's not an unpleasant aroma, but for me some of the memories it conjures are terrifying to this day. The flavor has a wonderful bubblegum character up front followed by a light straw dryness. The beer also shows herbal notes and hints of peppercorns and apricots which while they sound like a poor match on paper really tie the flavors in this beer together exquisitely. Now my understanding is that the beer is brewed with whole corn stalks thrown right into the brew kettle. This process certainly provides a romantic visual and I hope they keep making the beer this way. One problem with whole sweet corn stalks is that they're not always in season, and I can say with certainty that sweet corn is not an ingredient listed in a brewers supply catalogue let along whole sweet corn stalks. So Cornucopia will remain a beer only brewed when such an "exotic" ingredient is available to the brewery. Six packs are still in stores now, but I wouldn't be surprised if this beer is gone till springtime very soon.
Named for one of the brewers daughters Tigerlily is a Saison in the tradition of DuPont (much like the cornucopia) however this beer maintains a character all it's own.
Pouring an almost orange color with a big head that leaves a great lace on the glass, Tigerlily certainly looks the part. The aroma has a wonderful bouquet of orange blossom & cooking spice with keeping pungent and floral overall. The flavor is earthy and dry with a nice bitter old world hop character. The yeast provides a very nice fruitiness. This isn't the only Saison that is made out at Rock Bottom, numerous beers of the style are brewed each year here and each of them represents Saison in a different way.
Court Avenue Bon Pere -
I guess Makeup work usually includes at least a little cheating. Technically Bon Pere is brewed as a Biere De Garde, which I suppose is the farmhouse beer of France. This is not to say that the styles are the same, but they carry a very similar history, character, & following. Many a Saison has been dubbed a Biere De Garde and vise versa in world of "craft beer"... Bon Pere is currently on tap at Court Avenue and while it represents a different style of beer it's the closest thing they've got to a Saison currently, which is not to say that Saison is not a well loved style at this downtown brewpub.
Bon Pere pours (into a pretty stemmed glass) a light amber color with a small head. The aroma is bready with a fair amount of earthy character and floral sweetness featuring a nice peach and toasty character in the back-ground. The flavor is lightly tart with flavors of peach, strawberry, brown sugar, spicy and herbal hops and an earthy bitterness. All that fruit flavor and one would expect a sweet beer, not so in this case where we have a nice dry beer complimented by fruit flavors.
There are very few styles that aren't in some way or another represented in the lineups of the Area breweries here. For this we are blessed. If you don't frequent these establishments, please use this recommendation to go ahead and do so.
No comments:
Post a Comment