The head brewer of De La Senne, Yvan De Baets, is known as one of the world’s most knowledgeable people on the history of farmhouse ales. So it should come as no surprise that the bloke can knock out a decent saison.
This beer was made to replicate the rustic saisons of Belgium in the 1920’s, characterised by the use of alternate grains like the spelt used for this beer, and the natural airborne yeast in the form of the Brussels Brettanomyces yeast strain that is added for secondary fermentation in the bottle.
Pouring a cloudy light yellow, the aroma is fruity and funky. A grainy malt body offers a lean, crisp backbone with lots of fruit flavours in the form of pineapple, apricot and some berries. And the barnyard funk sits over the top of all of this, offering that really rustic, interesting and wild yeast character.
Thanks to the Brettanomyces eating up all the sugars that normal yeasts just can’t, the beer finishes really dry, with a prickly and slightly citrus aftertaste.
Always interesting to get an insight into the nature of beers of the past, and I for one am really glad that we get to enjoy beers like this now.
A farmhouse ale brewed with wheat and fermented with fig juice
An interesting farmhouse ale with seven different hops plus liquorice
The 2014 vintage of De La Senne's commemorative brew - a ripper Belgian Pale Ale
De La Senne's once-a-year birthday celebratory pale ale, this time using an experimental hop from Slovenia
A Black IPA from Brasserie De La Senne - lots of roasted malts and earthy hop flavours
A Belgian ale 100% fermented with a Brussels Brettanomyces yeast, conditioned for 4 months in the bottle before release
A dry-hopped Strong Golden Ale from De La Sense
This is a mixed fermentation ale aged in oak barrels for one year
This beer is known as the most bitter Tripel style beer in all of Belgium!
A collaborative Saison featuring rye, spelt and wheat malts, dry-hopped with a Ukranian hop called Zachrava
The first beer in the trilogy of collaborations to celebrate 20 years of Zinnebir
An attempt at recreating a traditional 19th-Century saison, heavily hopped and mixed with lambic then barrel aged
An historical style spelt saison, dry-hopped and refermented with Brettanomyces
A new beer for Brasserie De La Senne is their take on a traditional Belgian wit
The second beer in the 'Zinnebir' celebration/collaboration series
A Christmas beer that is lighter, drier and hoppier than a standard winter seasonal
A malty blond ale with a pleasant peppery bite from only the second brewery in Brussels
