Saturday Saison Side-by-Side Session

"Let there be...Saisons!"

New York this time of year has somewhat dismal weather. The grey lurks through most days, clouds shunt the suns paltry attempts at relaying any semblance of warmth, and night settles early, often accompanied by biting winds and rain. Times like these call for beers that harken to summer - its long, sunlit days, warm, breeze-filled nights, and the many wonderful social gathering outdoors that give it a pleasantly active sense of relaxation.

Belgian farm-workers in the French speaking part of the country inaugurated the overarching style of the Saison. They brewed during the cooler months of the winter, then stored the ale in barrels in farmhouses or barns to ferment until the warmer summer months. At that point, they enjoyed the fruits of their labor.

The grand-daddy of the style is Saison Dupont Vielle Provision, still brewed out of Brasserie Dupont in Belgium. After crafting the initial brew, the beer is placed in thick-walled green glass bottles for secondary fermentation, where the brewer's yeast digests the remaining brewing matter left in the corked bottle. This results in an unfiltered beer with strong natural carbonation.

It's important to note at this point that Saison still lacks a particular specificity. Any number of beers brewed in some level of concordance with the tradition of brewing Saisons in Belgium can claim to be Saisons, but their character, flavor, and ABV can vary appreciably. Thus, it's perhaps more helpful to think of a Saison as a larger umbrella for a series of smaller subsets of beers (much like how you'd hear the term Sour used in beer naming). The shared characteristics tend to be bottle-conditioning / secondary fermentation, smells/tastes of yeast, straw, barnyard, spices, and faint citrus, a light mouthfeel, and a dry finish.

A few Saturdays ago, two beer-loving friends visited me in New York, trekking in from rural Massachusetts and Washington DC, respectively, to enjoy a weekend of ale-appreciation. My girlfriend joined as well. The four of us (who had been on a trivia team in college at the local pub) gathered round and tasted our way through four Saisons (pictured above, left to right):

• Anchorage Brewing Company Love Buzz Saison ($15.25 for 25 oz at New Beer, NY, NY) - Anchorage, AK
• Goose Island Sofie ($12 for a 4-pack of 12 oz bottles at New Beer, NY, NY) - Chicago, IL
• Saison Dupont Vielle Provision ($11 for 25 oz at Whole Foods, NY, NY) - Tourpes, Belgium
• Brooklyn Brewery Sorachi Ace ($11 for 25 oz at Whole Foods, NY, NY) - Brooklyn, NY
  
  

The Origin Story

When I was four years old, some distant relative on my Dad's side jokingly held a can of Miller Lite in front my nose. "Want to try some?" The smell was so revolting that I promised to categorically reject even the notion of beer indefinitely. "No" would be the only answer that I would have for that evil beverage.

A decade and a half later I found myself in college, and nothing about this relationship had changed - beer and I were still mortal enemies. It smelled bad, made the floors sticky, and led to people vomiting in my hallway's bathroom. Our estrangement seemed destined for the ages.

But as fate would have it, on the occasion of my 21st birthday BBQ, I received a four-pack of beer as a present. It came in a lime-green cardboard four-pack carrying case, and it advertised itself as a lady, classy and demure: Sofie. It had come from a brewery named after the island in the middle of my hometown's eponymous river; I was still wary of it. With a hesitating tone, I poured it out into a champagne glass. Pardon the pun, but this seemed high-flutin'. I indulged her, though, and there she lay, effervescent, the color of golden straw, the mid-day summer sun kissing her softly. I took a taste.

"Whole Lotta Love" "I Can Hear Music." "Here Comes the Sun." - and that's just constraining myself to music from 1969. A light went on that day - an epiphany that made me realize the error of my previous ways at a Flannery O'Connor pitch. How could I have cast aside such an incredible thing? It was if I had visited New York City as a boy, met one mean person, and decided the whole city should be destroyed, Abraham's arguments to the contrary be damned. Now, I realized that if I gave it a chance, there was a lifetime of amazing adventures to be had in Gotham and elsewhere, one great beer at a time, often with a friend.

As the famed Czech proverb goes, so too did that first encounter: "A fine beer may be judged with one sip, but it is better to be thoroughly sure." Not only did I want more of this beer, I wanted to try all the rest of them too - what's appreciation without a larger context? So I set out to the roads of this country with pint glass in hand, ready for all the hoppiness and happiness that awaited me.

Now it's been a year and a half of this treasure hunting, and I have nothing but fond memories and experiences to recall. Pliny the Elder on tap at trivia night in Palo Alto. Tracking down Zombie Dust in Munster. Raspberry Tart to celebrate an anniversary. Accordingly, I've decided to start this blog, The Amazing Adventures of Great Beer and Clay (greatbeerandclay.blogspot.com). In it, I'll feature:

• Reviews of and tasting notes on delicious, interesting, and new beers, including:
• Longer individual and head-to-head reviews of exceptional varieties and the journeys behind obtaining them
• Quick-hit lists of other beers
• Features and write-ups on notable beer events and pilgrimages in and around NYC (and occasionally Chicago!)
• Recurring pairing series that suggest matches for a given beer or beers
• Quarterly (all styles) and annual (both by style and overall) best-of lists and awards
• A "Beer Basics" section containing useful information for those just beginning to learn about beer, including sections on history, the brewing process, and styles, as well as links to other helpful resources, discussion boards, and communities

It's my hope to create and curate interesting, insightful, and educational content on notable beer, and to help situate that information in relation to other beer, culture, and history.

As a final note, I must thank Michael Chabon and his heroes for the inspiration for the blog's title. Comicbooks have always been one of my biggest sources of inspiration, learning, and enjoyment, so when I came across a certain Pulitzer winning novel, I was thunderstruck. Never before had someone so deftly and completely put the contours of my world of comic books to paper in such a "respectable" medium. If anything that I can muster here on the topic of beer is even 1/10th as good as his work on comicbooks, then I'll consider myself happy indeed - and you'll have something special on your hands.

'Nuff said - on to the beer!

-Clay