Saison: Day 2

My second day of Saison takes me north of Wallonia into Flanders, the Dutch speaking part of Belgium to sample Urthel Saissonière, a beer awarded Europe's best seasonal pale ale medal at the 2010 World Beer Awards. From Urthel I leave mainland Europe and travel across the channel to England to try out the Bristol Beer Factory Saison and finally I end up in Aberdeenshire at that bastion of bombasticity – Brewdog to take in the delights of their seasonal offering, Electric India.

Neither of these three beers are listed as recommended examples in the BJCP list so according to their guidelines in each of these beers I should find – 'a refreshing, medium to strong fruity/spicy ale with a distinctive yellow-orange colour, highly carbonated, well hopped, and dry with a quenching acidity.' Sounds good to me, so on with the tasting...

The Urthel brewery was founded in 2000 by brewer Hildegard Van Ostaden and husband Bas, who deals with marketing and design, in Flanders, Belgium. Since 2006 most of their brewing has been done at the Koningshoeven brewery in the Netherlands which is also home to the Trappist La Trappe family of beers. Saisonnière is, according to their website a blond 6% 'unique combination of Saison and white beer' brewed with 20% wheat. It pours hazy and golden with a short lasting white foamy head and an effervescent level of carbonation. The nose is bright, hoppy and citrusy revealing a slight banana/sweet malt aroma and a touch of must. The body is medium-light with spicy hops and lemons coming through. The finish is typically dry and refreshing with a bitter, grapefruit-tart bite at the end. Overall this is a very crisp, accessible and sessionable beer. It's not as characterful as the Saison Dupont but it isn't trying to be a style defining beer, it's an unashamed hybrid that has sacrificed full on Saison funk for a slice of Witbier smooth.

Having left the Saison motherland and ventured into England I suppose all subsequent beers I try can be deemed interpretations or homages to the style. The 6.5% Bristol Beer Factory Saison comes in a 500ml bottle with a rather uninspiring brown/yellow label fused with a touch of Brewdog devil may care, worn screen print slap-dashery. Label aside the beer itself is fantastic. It pours cloudy golden-copper, lively and effervescent with a foamy off-white head that leaves large lacing on the glass. The nose is aggressively yeasty with a zingy, prickly pepperiness. It's an intense aroma that, compounded with the fizzing CO2 really sticks in your nose and gets your mouth watering. The initial onslaught of aroma subsides to reveal malty caramel, banana, vanilla and sour dough. It's medium-bodied with an almost chewy spelt bread and marmalade, Munich malt flavour leading to a very dry and bitter noble hop finish that is both spicy and earthy. Definitely the hoppiest beer so far and one I would happily return to again.

The final beer of today's travels is Electric India, a 7.2% 'hoppy saison' from Brewdog. I feel further analysis of this beer requires a shift in style to a more didactical magniloquence better suited to the Brewdog ethos.

I uncompromisingly poured the bold beer into the irreverent glass. The carbonation wasn't effervescent like the other saisons but it had soul, and purpose - it made the beer fizzy. It was golden, not in a soulless industrially produced way but in an ironic rebellious way. The aroma? You guessed it – yeast, hay, banana, pineapple, malt. That's five more aromas than a corporate commodity concoction can ever conceive of containing. I ditched the olfactory stage of analysis and said hello to the gustatory one. It was yeasty and fruity. It was light bodied. It had an uncompromising bitter, peppery aftertaste. There was bread and orange and lychees. Fuck yeah, Lychees!

It was... surprisingly well balanced actually. The label promised 'An unholy union between a Belgian Saison and an Indian Pale Ale.' but instead I drank an easy-going, fairly crisp not particularly outstanding or memorable beer. Not bad, just not great either.