Farmhouse Ales vs Saisons

None. They are the same.

 

IMO, there are two beer styles that are Farmhouse Ales: Saison and Bière de Garde.

Cheers!

 

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/are-saisons-and-farmhouse-ales-the-same-thing.54338/

 

Glad this was posted, wondered about it myself.

 

Once upon a time all beer was Farmhouse Ale - or at least most of it. The stuff that survived into the 20th century was from southern Belgium and Northern France and both Saison and Bière de Garde come from that tradition. There is some interesting stuff coming out of Scandinavia claiming to be farmhouse ale that reaches back to their pre-industrial traditions. Drammen Norway's Haandbryggeriet is a good example.

 

anybody get the "rubber hose" taste from some of these

had a highly rated wicked weed brew and it reminded me out being little and thirsty in the summertime

 

Farmhouse ales can only be brewed on a farm. Saisons can be brewed in any dirty urban building.

 

I was fully expecting you to be from Vermont after reading this

 

It's just like rectangles vs. squares. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.

 

See: Logsdon Farmhouse Ales - Hood River Oregon

 

phenolic.

 

Saison and Farmhouse Ale are the same. Just like Scotch Ale is the same thing as Wee Heavy. Check this out. There are more examples. http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/style/

 

Wee Heavy was just the name of one Scotch Ale (Fowler's twelve Guinea Ale) which was sold in small (wee) bottles.Just as Fuller's ESB (just a name) was mistaken for a style.
Saisons never were a style any more than "home cooking" , just very low gravity beers brewed well in advance of the harvest when the allowance was eleven US pints a day.

 

For my money, at least in terms of modern brewing, I think more latitude is taken with the saison than the farmhouse ale. I've seen black saisons, dark saisons, cherry-smoked saisons, gin barrel-aged saisons, etc. But what breweries call farmhouse ales seem fairly traditional to the original style with little experimentation. I think the BJCP's style guide paints them both in a similar vein, but this difference is just something I've observed as of late...

 

These aren't saisons at all, the name has been hijacked.

 

Agreed, my man, but just calling 'em like I see 'em. Correct if I'm wrong though, but the BJCP does define saison and farmhouse ale in a very similar light, right? In my mind, the biggest factor in determining the style name comes down to where the beer is brewed - i.e. a saison is brewed in Belgium, whereas a farmhouse ale is a riff on a saison brewed anywhere else?

 

I was thinking the same thing

 

I am finding that more and more breweries are referring to themselves as farmhouse breweries making farmhouse ales. Now, those ales do not tend to only be saisons and/or biere de garde styles (as those are the styles discussed in Phil Markowski's Farmhouse Ales book). I have seen pale ales, IPAs, and even a wonderful alt (Right Proper!).

It seems that farmhouse ales are almost being rebranded to represent any sort of rustic style of ale that is produced in a (generally) more rural brewery. That isn't always the case, but it is something I am seeing with some of these newer "farmhouse" breweries.