What is a saison?

Saison refers to the saisonniers, the seasonal workers who used to come to Walloon farms to help with the harvest.

The farmhouse breweries were mainly in the French-speaking south of Belgium, with the province of Hainaut as the core. Brewing was done in the cold months, when there was little land to work and the fermentation stayed better under control.

In summer the beer went out into the field. The word saison therefore refers to the season in which it was drunk, not the season in which it was brewed.

Modern saisons usually fall between 5 and 8 percent alcohol by volume, as The Oxford Companion to Beer describes the style.

The historical farmhouse version was lighter, because the beer was meant for people who worked outside all day. When the style disappeared from the farms in the twentieth century and was taken up by commercial breweries, the alcohol percentage rose.

Op elke fles staat het volumepercentage van de brouwer. Alcohol verkopen wij niet aan iedereen onder de 18 jaar. NIX18.

Saisons re-ferment in the bottle: at bottling the brewer adds sugar and yeast, which then produce the carbonation in the closed bottle.

Trade literature mentions 8 to 12 grams of sugar per litre and about a million yeast cells per millilitre as the usual addition. The refermentation is usually finished within two to three weeks at a storage temperature of 21 to 25 degrees.

When the yeast has done its work it sinks to the bottom. What you see lying there is that yeast, and it belongs there.

Hold the glass at an angle, pour in one movement and leave the last finger-width with sediment in the bottle if you want clear beer in the glass.

For that, stand the bottle upright for a day, so the yeast settles quietly on the bottom. If you pour in fits and starts, the sediment swirls up anyway.

Some drinkers deliberately do it the other way round and swirl the last sip through the glass. Both ways occur; it is a matter of preference.

A saison comes from the Walloon farmhouse tradition and a tripel from the Belgian abbey and monastery tradition, although both are usually re-fermented in the bottle.

According to Belgian Brewers, Belgium has more than 400 breweries and well over 1,600 beer brands. Within that range, saison and tripel are two separate families with their own history, not two names for the same beer.

Anyone who wants to see the shoppable list of tripels will find it on our own tripel page. For saisons, the list is below.