Table Beer?

Jester King has an excellent beer that sounds very similar, called Le Petit Prince. This is also a table beer and is listed as a Farmhouse Ale - Saison on BA.

From the notes section: "A clear and simple expression of the delicate interplay between noble hops and farmhouse yeast. Throughout Northern Europe, light-bodied, well-hopped, low alcohol table beers were often the beverage of choice with all meals at times and in places where the water wasn’t always safe to drink."

 

There’s been a lot of good conversations on forums around this very blurred light Belgian style (Grizette, Saison, Table Bier, Belgian Pale Ale, Farmhouse ale and so on). All of those are great styles. I like the ones with a touch of funk and subtle tartness/sourness myself. Jester king, HF, Suarez etc all pull this off quite well.

 

Never mind the views, the original location is in my neighborhood. I just passed it an hour ago, thanks to the good weather, the garbage trucks around it were on full display both visually and olfactorily.

 

Or try WIld East IG. They answer DMs quickly.

 

It sure is.

 

I agree with your statement here.

On a related note I responded to a thread entitled “Kveik saison” in the homebrewing forum:

“I personally view Farmhouse Ale via a Venn Diagram where the Farmhouse Ale superset includes the elements (subsets) of Saison, Grisette, Bière de Garde,…

In my opinion a Saison needs to be fermented with a Saison yeast strain. And a Saison yeast strain should be POF+ and several/many of the Saison yeast strains have the ability to produce glycerol. The presence of glycerol yields a beer that despite the low final gravity that results from fermenting with Saison yeast strains the beer does not have a super thin mouthfeel.

In my opinion fermenting with a Kveik yeast strain may produce a fine Farmhouse Ale but that beer will not be a Saison.

But go ahead and ferment your beer with whatever Kveik strain you want. The beauty of homebrewing is that we are not confined by brewing conventions and we can do whatever we want. But perhaps it would be best to just not label that Kveik beer as being a Saison.”

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/kveik-saison.658410/#post-7255886

So, one more aspect to the discussion of what sort of beer a certain Farmhouse Ale should be categorized is what strain of yeast was used and in addition the specific fermentation conditions.

There seems to be a number of folks who are suggesting Tour de Table should be classified as a Saison but I would want to know what yeast strain was used to ferment that beer (and fermentation conditions).

Cheers!

 

So what you are saying is the saison style need to be split up? Because that’s what I heard… That’s what I always hear

 

But the Brits also had what they called Table beer back in the day. It had to do with taxation.

 

If it truly matched the qualities of a beer that was fermented cool with a lager yeast strain and then subsequently lagered cold (e.g., 32 degrees F) for many weeks then yes I would consider that beer a "lager". But I personally have my doubts this beer would meet that criteria for my palate.

Cheers!

 

It would work to classify it here as a "saison" because that would make the most sense within the current convention... but it's a lousy convention.

When a craft brewer calls something a "farmhouse" beer, it's usually code for a craft beer that is loosely inspired by stories of Belgian saisons. Farmhouse beer isn't a style.

When a craft brewer calls something a "table beer," it's usually code for a light craft beer with an ABV like an AAL (and often hoppy or made with Brett) that is loosely inspired by Belgian beer. Table beer isn't a style.

"Table beers" aren't limited to Belgian beer, but folks have made this an association today. It's unfortunate that craft brewers usually do not make their "table beers" as very low ABV beers. If picking between various categories of pale Belgian beers to place such a beer, there's nothing wrong with picking Belgian pale ale instead of saison... but it really doesn't matter (these beers are American through and through).

 

Farmhouse saison also

 

And mixed culture with classic Belgian saison. Split split split!

 

I would say generally that I don't think of table beer as a style personally. It's really more of an ABV threshold. Just an opinion.

 

And in those days of relaxed sanitation and a lot of yeast and brewing knowledge exchange between SE England and Belgium, they could have been quite similar. Belgian brewers had pretty much the same taxation issues.

 

Sounds like a Saison 25B. Various strengths are noted in the guidelines from Table, Standard, and Super. If it's in the 4.5% ABV, it's considered Table. I love table beers and enjoy making them when I brew a Quad or a Tripel (2nd runnings across the mash).