Beer · Light & sessionable

Saison

Peppery, dry, and farm-born — the Belgian ale brewed for harvest workers.

How to order it: Dupont is the benchmark. Pairs with almost anything that came from a field.

The story

Saison began as Wallonian farmhouse beer, brewed in the cool months and, tradition holds, laid down to refresh the seasonal workers — saisonniers — who brought in the harvest; historians note the romance has outpaced the records, but the farmhouse origin is real enough. Every farm brewed its own, so the style was always a region's argument rather than a recipe. By the late twentieth century it was nearly extinct, with Saison Dupont of Tourpes surviving as the benchmark — peppery, bone dry, brilliantly carbonated. American importers and the writer Michael Jackson championed it, craft brewers fell hard, and a beer made for field hands became the sommelier set's favorite thing to pour with dinner.

Adjacent pours