Favorite Grisettes

Randy was speaking specifically about beer vs. providing the migrant workers with water and bread (or other food stuff).

Maybe shoot him a letter or e-mail with your query?

http://randymosher.com/Contact-Home

Cheers!

 

Thanks! I realized his focus was on beer, but analogies are sometimes helpful in figuring things out and/or identifying critical differences.

Think I'll do a bit more homework before I contact him as I think an informed dialog worth a lot more than a question from knowing little.

 

I value your opinion. Merry Christmas to you too.

I believe the grisette hypothesis is:

- barley and wheat
- generally low strength but made to various strengths
- moderately hoppy
- top fermenting yeast
- not acidic
- a reflection of more industrialized brewing than farmhouse brewing
- changed throughout time like any other style
- a regional beer

I've never seen any suggestion that a modern "saison yeast" is inappropriate.
I've never seen any reference to spices, but I would be a little surprised if "spices" were normally added.
I've also never seen anything associated with grisette that falls outside of the scope of modern American or Belgian saison brewing.

 

But you seem to be against calling a beer Grisette even if it meets those parameters or resembles a low gravity Saison. I'm just wondering where the sticking point lies?

 

Available locally to the Denver Market, TRVE's Grey Watcher is really good.

 

I'll try to explain my thoughts and I hope it won't come across as sanctimonious, but it will be long-winded (and probably unpopular). Maybe I'll come to be embarrased by my over-sensitivity or misinformation.

It's a case of unnecessary cultural appropriation in my eyes. I know how weird that might sound in this context because that kind of thinking runs counter to the whole American craft industry. We make tripels, stouts, Gose, and so on and so on. I also realize that my word choices are probably making me sound much more extreme than my true feelings. I'll happily buy a beer labeled a grisette, but I can still be a little critical of the politics. Jack's right, it's a narrow-minded idea. In this field the norm is to not care about such things. We ask ourselves if we "can" brew something, not if we "should." It's the American way. Do we ever ask if we should? I'm being serious. I know this question isn't the usual topic of conversation.

I've seen some cavalier behavior from brewers. Sometimes in conversation. Where the style name that they give their beer feels really thoughtless or careless. I know brewers will brew and not burden themselves with such concerns. What gets forgotten is that that style doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's connected to people and places and methods and beers. If the excuse that we use is that we are performing cultural archeology then we should just slow down a little.

There's some sense in an American brewer brewing some non-native beer styles. If the beer type is relatively understood, then we can use the term with accuracy. If the beer type is distinctive, then there's no substitute. American brewers have already taken the term saison out of its context and done what they've wanted with it. American grisettes would have been called saisons by their brewers a few years ago. They perfectly fit within the framework of a saison. Why do we need to take another cultural term out of context... especially when the meaning of that word involves speculation? Rather than showing restraint, we've said "here it is, this is it." Have any American brewers drank a grisette? It's hubristic and it doesn't actually add anything to our beer landscape.

Since my tone could easily get misinterpreted here, I'm not ranting, just thinking. I am just more interested in this than hop varieties. Apologies for the long post and topic of conversation within this thread. I wouldn't be bothering if this naming term wasn't in its infancy over here.

 

What seems to be troubling you isn't restricted to Brewers or to the US. As the Cultural Anthropologists would tell us, it's a normal part of the assimilation process when two cultures come in contact and begin to be influenced by each other, as they will, once there is contact, regardless of our efforts to prevent it, from either side of the process of borrowing/assimilation. It's been going on for thousands of years and will continue to do so.

 

Thanks for the very thoughtful response; something to reflect on for sure.

 

Amen!!

The only constant is change.

Cheers!

 

So brewers can create a new label giving customers something perceived as different.

 

There's definitely that; craft consumers have certainly signaled that that's important to them. But it's also happening because Saisons are perceived as being a higher gravity beer, so, for better or worse, brewers with a lower gravity version may use the Grisette term to differentiate it in their own lineup.

 

I agree with your points but would argue that they aren't an arguement against mine. Using a blanket statement that these things happen doesn't absolve us from considering the appropriateness on a case by case basis. Also keep in mind that this is not really a case of two cultures coming into contact with each other. A Hainaut miner from the 1800s didn't decide to move to Portland. The cultural contact here is far looser and much more removed. If my perspective seems inappropriate, also consider that even though my feelings are my own and there are differences from Janssen's stated feelings, his public research on the topic kickstarted with similar concerns and reservations.

 

Yeah.

 

To clarify a bit, my comment wasn't intended as a counter argument but simply to make the point that the phenomenon is not unique to one subgroup, such as US brewers but is a reflection of a more general phenomenon, and one that can be reciprocal.

Nor was it meant to limit the effect to two simultaneously alive and thriving cultures since historical phenomena from one culture have a way of making their way into another culture in unexpected ways and often with some distortion.

But more importantly it was not meant to say your perspective was inappropriate. My apologies for any wording that led you to think that it was intended in that way.