Brasserie Dupont - Saison Dupont

Not too long ago as I was working my way through a case of beers from the fantastic folk at Summer Wine Brewery I was surprised and amazed at the brilliance of their lime & coriander Saison. I liked it so much that I preferred it to their dry hopped pale ale and IPA which traditionally is my favourite style of brew and vowed to delve deeper into the world of the Saison.

Now, I’m no stranger to Belgian beer, in my youth my Dad always kept beers like Duvel in the fridge, many years ago he bought me a Chimay triple (or should that be tripel) pack for my eighteenth birthday and when dining with him in Belgian restaurants he can’t get enough of Karmeliet Tripel so its fair to say I’ve sampled a few Belgian brews over the years. Potentially it may have been due to being so used to it that I don’t, or at least didn’t find traditional European beers as exciting or challenging as the new world beers that I love and regularly over-enthuse about. I’ve vowed to change my ways since going from beer drinker to beer scribbler and I can’t think of a better place to start than with a brew that has been highly recommended to me by many, Saison Dupont.

The Summer Wine Saison was not my first foray into this style of ale but never before had one set my world alight so brightly, perhaps a sign of the continuing development of my palate perhaps? Saison Dupont is part of a range of beers produced by Brasserie Dupont who brew out of a farmhouse in Torpes, Belgium. They have been brewing at this site since 1844 but it wasn’t until 1950 that they began to exclusively specialize in top fermenting beer. This is the first beer I’ve ever tasted that has been crafted by Brasserie Dupont so I’m pretty excited to get stuck in and see if my journey into the Saison can continue to meet the high standards set by Summer Wine.

'Tis the Saison

Before drinking I allow the beer to chill for a short while in my fridge, the Brasserie Dupont website recommends that this Saison is served at around 12 degrees centigrade and I don’t have a cellar. Like all of the Dupont beers this is bottle conditioned so the beer continues to mature after it has been bottled and although I hear that Belgian yeast is actually quite palatable I take care not to disturb the sediment at the bottom of the bottle. Selecting the very same Chimay glass that came with that triple pack all those years ago (at the moment its my only decent wide brimmed glass) I pour the liquid carefully at first and then with a little more joie de vivre towards the end to make sure I get a nice big frothy head as best suits this style.

In my experience Belgian beers are always quite lively and Saison Dupont is no exception and it has no trouble producing a one inch creamy white head, there is also plenty of carbonation present so that the foam has no trouble staying put. This beer has a wonderful, light golden appearance with a slight haze and produces the aroma of freshly cut grass, bailed and turning into hay in the summer sun accompanied by a whiff of orange peel. The beer is crisp and bright in the mouth but also has a wonderfully creamy body, my tasting notes say ‘light but full’ which makes no sense until you actually take another sip and it coats your tongue. The taste is of orange peel and lemon sherbert, hops and malt blended so well that you cannot tell one from the other and it becomes one glorious whole. Behind the fresh, floral flavours is an array of spicy coriander seeds and cloves, in fact the herbal quality of this beer distinctly reminds me of flavours more closely associated with Christmas but I’d rather have one of these sitting in the shade on a hot summers day.

This really is a ‘beer for the season’ and despite having so much going on it never becomes overwhelming and every flavour is balanced in perfect harmony, one never overpowering the other. Saison Dupont goes a long way to show that you don’t need to turn to new or exciting brews to find excellence but it does show that many of these new beers have a long way to go before they can exude the same class as this one.

Summer Wine Brewery Mixed Case – Part 1

It’s a pleasure and a privilege discovering a brand new brewery and when I got paid last month I ordered my first tasting case from Summer Wine Brewery in Yorkshire. More keen eyed readers among you will remember that I had problems with a courier for the umpteenth time and blogged about it a couple of weeks ago but once the case was safely in my possession I didn’t hang about and got stuck in straight away. Despite my problems I think it’s fantastic that a small craft brewery such as Summer Wine offers a door to door mail order service and I think that more breweries could benefit from offering the same. It opens up a wider world of craft ale for the discerning drinker and I would recommend that if you wanted to see what craft beer is all about then ordering a mixed case from Summer Wine would be a great place to start.

It’s been a few weeks since the case arrived and it has now been demolished in its entirety. I’ve had a the pleasure of trying two bottles of each of the beers I was sent, one just for the sake of enjoyment and with the second I analysed it as a reviewer, hastily scribbling notes in between mouthfuls. This led to the discovery that it is immeasurably more enjoyable just to drink the beer and not over examine each sip, its best just to relax and appreciate what the beer has to offer, for me at least.

A trio of craft delights from Summer Wine

The first beer in this mixed case was the lime and coriander Saison which despite for me being a self confessed hophead was the stand out beer in this selection. As a fan of IPAs and pale ales I often tend to overlook and dismiss other styles of brew but now I’m writing about the drink as well as just imbibing it I’m trying to approach other styles with a more open palate. I’m a fan of Belgian style ales but not as much as other, more modern beers and this is potentially because I was introduced to Belgian ales at a relatively young age by my Dad. As hop forward brews are still pretty new to me I generally dismiss Belgian style brews as being a bit old hat however this Saison has gone a long way towards opening my mind.

Saison is beautifully crafted and as I pour this beer straight from the fridge it fills my nostrils with hints of the lime and coriander infused into the brew. It smells like it tastes, zingy and refreshing with hints of citrus, black pepper and spicy coriander. It’s very lively in the mouth and has plenty of body and bold sugary flavours leaving a sweet trail as it slides down your throat. This beer is subtle and intense at the same time, you can gain just as much enjoyment slamming it down as you arrive home from work as you can gently savouring a glassful on a Sunday lunchtime. Beer like this is surely universally enjoyable as it has the light, refreshing qualities that appeal to a lager drinker and plenty of subtle, delicate flavours for fans of stronger ales. For me, it was the highlight of the entire case and it’s awakened something inside my beery brain, I fully intend to explore deeper into the world of the Saison in the future.

The next beer I tried is one that will divide opinion and I liken it to coffee infused chocolates that always get left until last in the sweetie tin. I’m a massive fan of both coffee and stout and so I naturally expected to thoroughly enjoy Barista espresso stout, unfortunately I’m still not sure if this is the case. It tastes as you would expect, a nice and extremely drinkable stout with lovely hints of roasted malt that drinks very easily despite its dark appearance this is followed with a massive hit of cold, bitter coffee. I wouldn’t go so far as to say as I dislike this beer because I happily drank two bottles of the stuff but I found the coffee flavour to be a little too overpowering and didn’t get to taste enough of the beer itself. I can imagine some people not being able to get on with this at all and some people loving it but I think on the whole I prefer my stout and my coffee separately. Saying that if I was in the pub and someone handed me a pint of it I wouldn’t say no… For the record this beer works well as a livener and definitely gave me caffeine induced jitters.

Next up is a beer that I was really looking forward to, Teleporter a beer that boasts a recipe laden with ten malts, brilliant. This is an excellent example of a porter, rich, full bodied and choc full of massive roasted malt flavours combined with hints of burnt sugar and molasses. Teleporter coats the palate like black treacle and doesn’t want to let go, it’s rich, sweet flavours combining really well with the slab of goats cheese I was working my way through at the time.

So far so good, two big winners and one beer that has left me sitting on the fence, come back for another look see this coming Sunday when I’ll post my thoughts on a trio of Hop Bombs from Summer Wine.