What is a Barrel Aged Saison?

The saison style has roots in Belgium, and has been co opted by craft brewers and has become a catch all umbrella that references back to the beer being an americanized version of a Belgian inspired brew. They aren't all sour, they aren't all fruited, they aren't all barrel aged. For me, a saison should be light, effervescent, dry as a bone, and have a very phenol forward spiciness to it.

 

A barrel aged saison is exactly that, a beer that's been brewed with what these days is considered a "saison" yeast and then barrel aged.

There are different strains of saison yeast that are more acidic than others, but historically almost all saisons coming out of the northern France/southern Belgium area were at least partially sour if not funky. Keep in mind they were not that strong, which is much different than today's versions.

If what you're thinking of is soured that probably happened in the barrel, but there could have been other yeasts added as well. I'd imagine that historical versions all contained some amount of Brettanomyces which can give some acidity, but also some pedio or lacto cultures as well.

I'm assuming you haven't read it but "Farmhouse Ales" by Phil Markowski is interesting, entertaining, and quite informative.

 

As @SFACRKnight mentioned, "saison" is, very unfortunately, very open to interpretation, but the key characteristics are well-attenuated, effervescent, and ester/phenol forward.

If your saison is sour, outside of production techniques, not much.

The type of beer that you enjoy is, basically, an American invention. Though Shaun Hill gets a lot of credit for popularizing them, there were other producers making very similar beers at the time, they just weren't calling them saisons. Many of them are in this category, American Wild Ale:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/style/171/

An interesting sidebar is the Biere de Coupage, which is a mixture of aged sour beer and young hoppy beer. Some lovely reading here:

http://www.browneandbitter.com/2016/02/biere-de-coupage-some-background-and.html

and here:

http://www.thefarmhouseobsession.com/search/label/Bière de Coupage

 

Indeed. The problem with that is that you can have a "clean" barrel aged saison, a barrel aged saison with brett, a barrel aged saison with lactic acid bacteria, and a barrel aged saison that has both brett and lactic acid bacteria, and all those can be either fruited or unfruited. The bigger problem is that all of those are still considered to be saison, as long as the producer names them thusly. IMO, because of the US market, the term saison has lost just about any meaning. I really wish every brewer would either read or listen to Yvan de Baets before they even attempt to brew a saison. Here's to hoping that at least some of them do.

Pre-Pasteur, that describes a large percentage of beer.

As highly hopped as a lot of historical saisons were, I'd lean towards a pediococcus species providing the acidity, if they had it at all.

IMO, a must-read for any lover of these types of beers.

 

it can be hoppy too. But one thing that I get in almost all saisons I've had is a black pepper fruity flavor.

 

Let me add to that list of variables by bringing up the different things that "barrel" can refer to.

Unfortunately, when people say "barrel-aged" these days, more often than not they are talking about second-use barrels (for lack of a better term). Bourbon seemingly the most common type.

In the case of saisons, "barrel aging" has referred to everything from foeders to whiskey barrels. Nonetheless, when I see an American saison that is labeled "barrel aged," I assume that the brewer is talking about the beer being aged in wine barrels. While that's obviously not the exclusive meaning, it signifies this more often than anything else in my limited experience (and with white wine barrel aged saisons being more common than red).

Some lambic (which is historically related to saison) brewers/blenders use red wine barrels as well, but they use these barrels because they want less wood character influencing the beer rather than wanting the previous liquid influencing the beer. Typical American craft brewers tend to look at it in the reverse (at least in terms of marketing).

 

Mostly agreed, but ftfy.

Wood, for the most part, should simply be a neutral vessel, not something that imparts character. These are not imperial stouts or barleywines, after all.

 

I did the Casey tour this summer and they use wine barrels but they spend a lot of time and effort to clean them before filling. If I remember right it was red wine not white. They said it was all about the particular type of oak used by wine makers, it works great for their base beers (one of which is a Saison) they were not looking to get any wine influence on the beer. Great tour BTW.

 

We have now fit "sour" into what a Saison's profile may encompass?

 

I think a lot of people get stuck on the fact that "traditional" saisons of yesteryear were not fermented with isolated yeast strains, making the probability that some were sour rather high. Although they probably were sour, that doesn't mean that they were intentionally so.

 

The best saisons I have had are sour (from Side Project). There are quite a few that are very earthy and pretty bland for my palate.

 

"Best" compared to what?

 

"Best" compared to the saisons that are earthy and minimal. Sometimes they are called table beer or table saison. If you look at the top 10 in the Saison / Farmhouse category almost all are sour.

 

That's because people like sour beer and not necessary saisons. I would think this is the case with yourself, as well.

 

I like both but prefer saison's on the sour side. I go off what the brewer calls the beer or what it's categorized on beer advocate to determine style.

There are some funky beers from Logsdon that are not sour like Side Project but have a excellent depth of flavor.

 

Well . . . if they're truly funky, they have Brettanomyces in them. Saisons do not require Brett, or acidity from LABs, to have depth of flavor. The beers from Dupont and Blaugies prove that.

 

Which non funky/sour saisons do you like best?

 

I reckon that he just mentioned a couple .