Are Saisons Too Strong

I'm sure some people more educated on the topic than me can give you a better answer but it seems that the craft beer boom keeps pushing towards bigger beers.

 

I don't know that 2 to 4% necessarily is historically accurate. It was suppose to be refreshing for field workers in the summer, yes, but it also had to keep through the summer since they traditionally didn't brew in the summer months. So I believe a range of 5 to 6% wasn't unheard of by any means, even traditionally speaking.

 

Saison Dupont is 6.5%. I'm interested to hear how that's not a good example of the style.

 

I think traditionally they were small table beers. If you are looking for a version that is very tasty try. La Petite Prince from Jester King.

Cheers!

 

They were originally brewed with a low abv. Since I'm not a farmer I want to get blackout drunk after work so why would I drink a beer that's ~3%?

 

If I remember correctly from Farmhouse Ales, 2-4% ABV for saisons is historically accurate. Field workers were drinking saison in place of water, so the ABV couldn't be much higher than that. OP, to answer your question, perhaps the higher ABV is to account for the price tag of saisons; most are sold in the bomber or 750 mL format. It may be hard to justify an $8+ 750mL of 3% beer. I'm not trying to start the "bang for your buck by ABV" argument, just speculating.

 

whoa whoa, back up. individual beers have intent behind them. styles do not. whoever was brewing a saison 100 years ago surely didn't care about what the ABV of some future commercial beer might be.

 

Also, Americans seem only to have begun brewing them fairly recently, so any original purpose as fieldhand brews would have been irrelevant.

 

The only saison I've had is tank 7 and I think the abv is like 7 something or maybe even 8 something. I thought that was pretty high for the style, and the beer was a little too sweet for me

 

The art of farmhouse brewing was simply to brew what you needed for the farm with what you have on the farm. You needed a safe beverage to slake the workers thirst all day so they made a lot of low gravity stuff, but if you don't think they squirreled some first runnings off for celebrations and the old evening private stock, that would be a questionable assumption. Because the stronger stuff is export-worthy thats what we see from Belgium. If people find lighter American versions a great substitute for current lighter offerings, then the low gravity saison will probably again become the large part of the style.

 

why would you want to get Blackout drunk?, plenty of brews @ 4% taste great!

 

TBC just released a Saison which is 4.4%. And delicious!

 

I certainly prefer drier saisons that are lower ABV for the most part.

 

I believe in this video Michael Jackson talks about saisons being 6.5, 7.5 even 8.5%. Anyone who hasn't seen this should watch this, Jackson is hilarious here talking about oral SPF and how he'd prefer it intravenously if he could.

Not claiming this is accurate just posting this for discussion btw.

 

The "style" is hard as every farm had a different recipe and strength.. prob even year to year. One farmer may have been a moderate while the next like em strong. That is the appeal of the style to me lots of room for interpretation when I brew them. There was also an open variety of herbs, spices and fruit that could have been added making it wide open as a style.

 

I am not surprised by the wide range in ABV's for the style since there are such a wide variety of ingredients used from saison to saison. I have found some low ABV saisons (Bam Biere 4.5%) to be just as tasty and full of flavor as some of the higher gravity versions (Saison Rue 8.5%). I love most of them, even the often-hated-on "black saison" Terrapin Tomfoolery.

 

Regardless of what this style was traditionally, I would argue numerous styles are trending towards too strong, with not enough on the lower end to balance it out.

 

Get out of America!

 

I would wholeheartedly agree with this! It seems like some look to the abv as a reason to buy or not to buy some brews instead of just enjoying it for what it is.