It’s time to celebrate the coming warm weather (it’s coming, it really is) with a beer of refreshment and nourishment – a worker’s beer. Spring and summer are no time for a beer of kings or royalty, it’s time for a beer that slakes our thirst and reminds us that flavor is not a compromise when refreshment is required. So this week, this first week of spring, we release the third canned beer from Notch in 6 packs and 12 packs. Correct, a 12 pack of Notch Saison, perfect for a workingman’s thirst (and his wallet).
When we first released Notch Saison in 2011, lower ABV examples were hard to find. Which is a shame, because the very essence of saison is the lower ABV benefit. It was originally brewed by farmers to slake the thirst of seasonal workers (les saisonniers) in Belgium, but this refreshing beer had a lower alcohol content that is not often seen in today’s modern saison. It’s probably difficult to bale hay while quenching your thirst with a 7% beer, so it is easy to see the appeal of a lower ABV worker’s beer. The saisons previous to WWI were often referred to as courante saison (everyday saison). We like that. Feel free to consume Notch Saison everyday – it refreshes during or after any warm weather activity.
And what happened to worker’s saison? As manual labor slowly gave way to machinery, saisons were no longer needed as refreshment, and most farmhouse breweries shut down after WWII. With this shift to automation came the disappearance of these lower alcohol saisons, however, higher alcohol saisons survived and are the most familiar saison to craft beer fans.
Notch returns the saison to its roots not only in alcohol content, but also by using local ingredients much like the Belgian farmhouse brewers. As each farmhouse used ingredients locally available, each saison had its own character. (This is why saisons are not considered a strict style, but a category of beers.) In this locally sourced spirit, the Notch Saison uses wheat malted by Valley Malt in Hadley Massachusetts, and the wheat makes up over 25% of the total grain bill.
So, there’s the back story, but how does a lower alcohol saison taste? Refreshing! It has the dry, hoppy finish you expect in a saison, along with the classic spicy and fruity saison yeast character. Yet, like all Notch session beers, it is balanced for multiple pints, and is a great hot weather thirst quencher. Or, as always, a great lunch beer where one and done can mean one and back to work. See, it is worker’s beer!
Much of the saison history presented here was referenced and probably butchered (but never cut and paste – it’s not on-line yet…) from the writings of Yvan DeBaets and Phil Markowski as presented in the book “Farmhouse Ales” – it’s a great read, check it out.
