Another Belgian Classic: Saison Dupont

Earlier this week, upon finding out that I got in to one of my graduate schools, I popped open a bottle of Saison Dupont to celebrate a little bit.


Saison Dupont
6.5% ABV, unfiltered, bottle conditioned, bottled in 2009

Saison is a classic Belgian style, also known as the farmhouse ale (or biere de garde in France). Tradiationally these beers would be brewed on farms in the winter and stored until the summer, when the farm workers would drink them as a thirst quencher after a long, hot day of work.

Therefore, it's not surprising that these are thought of as like a Belgian "lawnmower" beer. However, my research on saisons has also set me up to expect a delicious complex beer. My idea of lawnmower beer is beer that comes about as close to water as possible, the American Adjunct Lagers (Bud, Miller, Coors). So I'm not really sure what to expect.

Firstly, this was a green 750 ml bottle with a cork and caging to prevent the cork from flying off; necessary because this is bottle conditioned. The cork gave a nice satisfying pop as it came off (much like opening a bottle of Champagne).

Upon opening and pouring, I started to get a sour, slightly funky aroma with fruit ester notes and some sharpness not unlike that in a lager. The beer was a very light amber color and had experienced chill haze, which made it almost look like a wheat beer.

The initial mouthfeel was of good carbonation, and I get some sharp yeast and some musty flavors. There is a slight bitterness at the back that I suspect is from dry hopping, though none of the vibrant hops flavors (pine, grapefruit, grass) are present. The sharpness as well as the excellent balance and integrated flavor makes this one actually have some things in common with a German lager, but with much more complexity in its yeast and earthy flavor notes.

This beer was indeed refreshing and could perhaps be used as a thirst quencher, but it has nothing in common with "lawnmower beer" beyond that. It is well executed, complex and subtle, and very delicious. However, I would eagerly accept a bottle after a bit of lawn work.

As I drank this I was eating a bowl of spicy, homemade chili. This beer's earthy flavors make it pair very nice with the savory meat and beans of the chili, and it's sharpness and light bitterness accentuates the acidity of the tomatoes and the spiciness. I think this complex beer is made for food, and would pair very well with many dishes.

Classic Belgian Beer and a Cheese Paring : Orval and 5-year aged Gouda

I've got a special beer and pairing tonight. Orval is a Belgian Trappist Ale. These beers are brewed by Trappist monks in the 7 beer-brewing monasteries (6 are in Belgium, 1 in Holland). These monasteries all brew the beer to support the running of the Abbeys, though most produce much more than needed and give the profits to charity. I have had one Trappist beer before, Westmalle Dubbel, which had a very complex, rich, malty flavor which was quite unlike any other beer I'd before, and is definitive of the Abbey ale style.

The beer produced by the Orval Abbey, I have heard, is quite different from other Trappist beers. Apparently Orval has a more pronounced hop character and contains the wild Brettanomyces yeast strain, which is supposed to contribute a funky, horse-blanket flavor to the beer that becomes more intense as the beer is aged (this is also the type of beer you can age much like wine). One more note about Orval before I move to drinking the beer: the abbey's logo, a fish with a gold ring in it's mouth, refers to the myth behind the founding of the abbey. The myth goes that a widow lost her ring in a lake and swore that if anyone found it, she would build an abbey to thank God. A trout brought the ring in it's mouth to lake surface, and the abbey founded became Orval.


Orval Trappist Ale
6.9% ABV, Bottled 1/22/2009

This beer pours (into a goblet for ideal aroma detection) with a huge, frothy head that hastens almost overwhelmingly towards the rim of the glass. The lacing is spotty but noticeable. The beer is a medium amber, and is almost crowded with effervescent bubbles racing to the surface.

The aroma has an almost sour, grape-like note, sweet caramel notes, and has a very foreign almost musky smell in the background which I am guessing to be the Brettanomyces. The aroma kind of starts to sting the nostrils if you keep taking big whiffs. This aroma was very unusual and complex. I can't wait to taste it!

The initial mouthfeel is of sharp carbonation leading into a smooth, velvety area and finishing with a slight hop bite as the beer is swallowed. I expected this beer to be rather bold, but I am very pleased by the complex subtleties of this beer. This beer is a good balance of hop portions, yeast esters, and malt, and does seem to feature some of the earthy, musty funk from the Brett, though it is well balanced and does not overwhelm the other flavors. I certainly understand why this is described by some as a "Belgian Pale Ale"; it has some similarities with British bitters, and is quite drinkable. This beer is very delicious and has a great understated complexity and some very interesting flavor notes while remaining rather light, almost delicate, and very drinkable. You don't really taste the moderate alcohol content. As I get about halfway through the bottle, however, I am starting to feel some of the effects of the alcohol. This beer is very interesting and I would love to see what it would taste like after more than one year of aging.


I grabbed a big cheese to pair with the Orval, expecting this to be a powerful beer like some of the other Trappists. I got a 5-year aged Gouda. This cheese was very bold with a rich, wild flavor. This cheese does have some earthy, musty flavors which complement the Brett flavors in the beer. This cheese is very bold and actually overpowers the beer somewhat. Though there is some interesting interaction between the two, I might initally lean toward a less bold cheese to pair with Orval in the future.

However, when I portion the cheese correctly and let it coat my mouth, sort of soak in, and start to fade out, and then I take a sip of beer, the flavors are much more evenly matched and pair quite well. This cheese is really fantastic; it definitely has some unusual earthy, funky flavors which really intensify the funk from the Brett and the bitterness from the hops in the beer (especially as you reach the end of the beer with it's yeast sediment). Tread lightly; if you are careful about taking very small amounts of cheese per sip of beer, this can be a pleasant and interesting pairing.

All this being said, this was a very interesting, complex beer and a great cheese (which I will reserve and work on more pairings with) and simply a great night of beer and cheese.

Pairing: Barleywine and Aged Cheddar

I had a great visit to the Charleston Beer Exchange with my brother this weekend while I was back in my hometown. I brought 10 or 11 beers back to Clemson to add to my pseudo-cellar. Among the beers I brought back are Saison DuPont, Stone Old Guardian, Cantillon Gueuze, and Orval.

Stone Old Guardian Barleywine
11.1% ABV

This barleywine (a style of beer characterized by generous malt proportions and therefore high alcohol content) is a robust, hoppy, malty, complex, well-balanced, and overall wonderful beer. I got it in a growler from the Exchange. It pours dark brown/amber and has a hoppy nose. At the outset the flavor would seem to be more dominated by the hops, but as the beer warms the rich, slightly sweet maltiness and heavy alcohol becomes apparent. The taste is extremely complex and features caramel, chocolate malt, and wood notes.

This beer paired extremely well with an aged cheddar my brother had. Unfortuanley I didn't catch the producer of the cheese as I was too wrapped up enjoying the pairing. The cheese was creamy, salty, and rich (but was not smoked; I'm not yet sure how well a smoked cheddar would have worked). The cheese and the beer alone were very good, and the combination was more than the sum of its parts (which is how I like to think of great pairings). The complex maltiness of the beer interacted with the maltiness of the beer and the hops in the beer helped cut through and refresh the palate. This was a fantastic pairing and has really got me pumped about beer and cheese. I hope to deliver more beer and cheese pairings soon.

Pairing: IPA and Lentil Soup

Yep, I've got a new pairing that I tried and enjoyed, India Pale Ale and Lentil Soup.

Lentils are extremely healthy, and I've been jonezing for some lentil soup since I watched the lentils episode of Good Eats sometime last month. Therefore, I made lentil soup tonight using this recipe. The soup wasn't really cumbersome to make, but set aside at least 1 hr and 15 minutes to prepare it.

I made a few alterations: cubed ham instead of bacon, green onions instead of leeks, herbs du provence instead of rosemary, red onion, celery, and I added about half of a European-style lager that I had lying around with the stock. Yes, I even cook with beer from time to time. (Reminds me of that Julia Child quote: "I love cooking with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food!")

The soup is awesome, it's very savory (ham flavor) and herby! The ham flavor made this a great match for a bottle of Red Hook's Long Hammer IPA I had in the fridge. The crisp bitterness of the hops cuts through the heavy protein and fat flavor of the soup and cleanses the palate. There is also some interesting interaction between the hop flavor and the savory flavors of the soup that somewhat reminds me of the interaction I experienced between Ranger IPA and the baked beans in a previous post.

This pairing was definitely a success and made for a delicious and healthy dinner. I highly reccomend this soup and IPA to wash it down!

What beer should you order at a Mexican Place?

In an earlier post I paired Sierra Nevada Glissade Bock with homemade Enchilada Casserole, but I pointed out a problem that I encounter often (as I love Mexican food): Mexican restaurants never seem to serve decent beer.

If you are lucky enough to be at a Mexican place that has a Pale Ale or Bock available, those are excellent choices for Mexican food and I would spring for them first. I have also had Sam Adams Boston Lager with Mexican food and the pairing was also quite nice and a good choice over standard Mexican restaurant beer options.

Now if you are in most Mexican places you are out of luck and have to choose between crappy American adjunct beers (i.e. Bud, Miller, Coors), Corona, Dos Equis, Modelo Especial, and Negra Modelo. Until this weekend, I had tried all of these except Negra Modelo and I have to say that they are all fairly similar.

Negra Modelo is my recommendation in the absence of craft beer choices. It is a Vienna lager, with a dark syrup-like transparent color and subtle lager maltiness and slight hop bight that makes for a more interesting flavor than these other Mexican beers. If Negra Modelo isn't available, I would go for Dos Equis or Modelo Especial next, as they at least have more flavor than Corona or the American Macros.

Pairing: Dark Brown Ale/Porter and White Fish

Abita Turbodog
5.6 ABV, Willamette Hops, Pale, Crystal, and Chocolate Malts

I tried Abita Turbodog last night. It poured very dark brown/black with a generous creamy head. The bottle describes this as a dark brown ale but before even tasting this I thought it looked like a stout or porter. After tasting the beer it was very characteristic of a porter. The beer had a malty and slightly sweet flavor with little hop presence. The flavor was not very strong, with intensity somewhere in the range of Guinness (but with more sweetness).

I drank the Turbodog with Tilapia topped with crabcake. This was a decent if less than challenging pairing; the beer was not so intense in flavor as to overshadow the fish. I think that stouts and porters that are not very intense in flavor such as this beer go well with white fish, but I can't say that I'm dying to have this again as the flavor combination was somewhat conventional.

Ranger IPA (and baked beans) and Two Hearted Ale

I did end up picking up a pack of New Belgium's Ranger IPA last weekend and tried it out with several foods. I stand by my last post that IPA is good for cutting through fatty and creamy foods that you see at parties. Also, the style is delicious in my opinion, so it's a great choice of beer for having a good time with friends.

There was one pairing that stood out for me this weekend. The IPA paired well with baked beans. These beans were prepared with a generous amount ground beef and had a subtle mustard flavor. The malt and hop flavors in the beer had a nice interplay with the savory and sweet flavors of the beans. I don't see baked beans like this too often, but if you happen to, grab an IPA and try this pairing!

I also had a bottle of Two Hearted Ale, an IPA from Bell's Brewery in Michigan, in the fridge so I decided to do a bit of a side by side between the Two Hearted and Ranger.

New Belgium Ranger IPA
6.5% ABV, Simcoe, Cascade, and Chinook hops

This India pale ale had an unusual and intense floral, grassy hop aroma. Of course, hops are a flower and the aroma of this beer reminds you of this. Being an active American IPA drinker I am very familiar with the aroma and flavor of Cascade hops, which are very popular aroma and bittering hops in America.

However, I have to admit that there was some hoppy element to the aroma and flavor of this beer that seemed very new to me; perhaps this may have to do with the Simcoe hops (12-14% Alpha acid), which I may not have had before and are apparently good bittering and aroma hops.

The flavor was full of lively, floral hops. I didn't find the beer exceptionally bitter, and it was balanced and delicious. Though it wasn't as luscious and "alive", this pleasantly made me think back on the Great Divide Fresh Hop IPA I had this holiday. I really liked the interesting and unusual take on IPA and the floral characteristics of this beer. I look forward to enjoying Ranger in the future.



Bell's Two Hearted Ale
7% ABV, hops unlisted

This is a very popular beer among hopheads, having been recommended to me by my cousin and kindred spirit in beer up in Boone. I quickly realized why this was so highly regarded after taking my first whiff of this IPA. The piney aroma is strongly of hops, and comparison with the floral aroma of Ranger illustrates the broad range of aromas that could be described as hoppy.

The flavor profile is very well constructed and essentially an exemplary prototype for American-style India Pale Ale. Piney and slightly spicy hops are upfront in the flavor, but very well balanced in the full body of the beer. This beer is an excellent offering of the piney hops flavor school of IPA's. The attention surrounding this beer is well-deserved, and I would absolutely recommend this as a great, well-executed IPA.







Both of these beers were great but very different styles of India Pale Ale. Two Hearted Ale was a well-executed and exceptional beer typical of the American style IPA. Ranger IPA on the other hand was a unique take on the style that featured heavy floral hop aromas and flavors that reminded me somewhat of Fresh Hop beer.