25th Anniversary Belgian Saison — Great Lakes Brewery

Many of you will already know that Great Lakes Brewery is celebrating their 25th anniversary this year.  If you didn’t, Great Lakes Brewery is celebrating their 25th anniversary this year.  Now we all know.  With that in mind, they have decided to release a few specialty beers to bars and the LCBO throughout the year.  Their first release was the 25th Anniversary Porter, now I have the pleasure of reporting on the next in line, their 25th Anniversary Belgian Saison.  If you’re interested in just what, exactly, a Saison is, I discuss it more in depth in my review of Great Lakes’ No Chance With Miranda Saison.  It is a style I really love, and one that doesn’t really get much representation at the LCBO, so it’s great that a wide variety of people will be exposed to it.  If you bought the porter, or saw some of the press for the Belgian Saison, you might be surprised to note the bottles are not, in fact wax-dipped.  Wax dipping the caps certainly adds a touch of class and —theoretically— protects the seal for ageing (though with the quality of modern crown-caps it’s redundant). Great Lakes says they made the call to omit waxing as they wanted people to be able to get right into them (and to be sure, cutting through the wax when it’s right out of the ice box can range from tricky to dangerous), however I suspect they also faced a potential mutiny in the brewery, as wax dipping that many bottles is hot, repetitive annoying work, and it can only be done by hand.  Wax or no wax, here we go!

25th Anniversary Belgian Saison — Great Lakes Brewery

From a 750ml dinner bottle bearing the distinctive Great Lakes 25th Anniversary label, Belgian Saison pours a hazy yellow/orange, akin to wildflower honey (I guess, depending on the wildflowers…)  with the slightest hints of brown in the centre.  About 1/2″ of fuzzy head drops to a dense layer of foam kept in place by a fairly generous carbonation.  Aroma is classic, floral and a little spicy. There is a touch of lemon to the aroma as well, adding a bit of depth to the very fragrant and delicate profile.  Exactly what one would expect from a fairly seasoned saison-maker like Mike Lackey.  Taste is immediately more lemon, but very well balanced with the malts.  There is clearly some classic belgian spicy yeast, perhaps white pepper and coriander seed, but also a nice punch of spicy hop, as well.  The hops also dry out the finish quite quickly, giving the beer a nearly lager-like quality, and definitely adding to it’s hot weather appeal.  The mouth feel is medium-light bodied, but with a heap of carbonation.  Thankfully, the carbonation feels quite small and foamy yet smooth, rather than big and prickly (I have no idea if you know what I mean.  It’s the difference between San Pellegrino sparkling water and sprite zero, if that helps).  Quite an excellent example of the style, though I suspect it’s basically a slightly modified version of their popular No chance with Miranda Saison; not that I’m upset by that.  A great beer to celebrate with, and a style I’m excited to see get mainstream attention when it hits the LCBO in the coming week or so.

Cheers, Great Lakes.  Happy anniversary!

Buy This Beer

25th Anniversary Belgian Saison is available at the Brewery retail store, located at 30 Queen Elizabeth Way (Gardiner Expressway and Royal York), at the LCBO soon (product #302687) and better beer bars around Toronto.

Drink It With

Lighter fare.  Seafood, especially shellfish dishes featuring fresh vegetables and herbs would be ideal.  Mussels and fries (Moules Frites) would be another excellent choice.  I had some last night with an Indonesian coconut pineapple curry, and it was sublime.  For cheeses, sharp goat’s milk cheese, featuring a bit of funk would work well, as the spices and citrus tang would compliment, and the big carbonation and refreshing finish would help cut some of the weight of the cheese. Jordan St John is doing a weekly beer and food post, and just did No Chance With Miranda and Thai Nua Pad Prik. Aside from the obvious applicability, it’s worth a read if you’re interested in how to think about food and beer pairings. You can read it here: http://saintjohnswort.ca/beer-and-food-tuesday-nua-pad-prik-with-miranda/

About The Brewery

Independently owned by the Bulut family, we produce our beer as it was done hundreds of years ago by using an open fire, copper brew house built in Germany in the early 1900’s.

Our small-batch brewing process allows us to carefully blend only the finest all natural ingredients to produce our award-winning beers. Our water, hops, malts and yeast are selected from local producers and those afar on the basis of but one criteria; quality.

http://www.greatlakesbeer.com/