By Michael Koger

In my previous blog, I wrote about sessionable beers that are perfect for summer drinking. However, I intentionally left out one of my favorite styles, saisons, to write a whole column about them. This classic style is going through a much needed renaissance. The term “Saison” comes from the French word meaning “season.” The style originated in the French-speaking region on Belgium known as Wallonia.

Wallonia was an agricultural region filled with farms and fields. During autumn, after the harvest, saisons were brewed to be consumed both as a table beer for year round consumption and especially during the hot summers. Saisons were typically poured for farmworkers coming in from a hot day in the fields for lunch. You wanted a beer that was delicious and thirst quenching but wouldn’t get you drunk. As a result, saisons typically had a low alcohol content, and because they were brewed on farms, they gave birth to a term known as “farmhouse ales” for any beer that has a crisp but funky characteristic to it.