Over the years, Saison Dupont has gradually been designated by experts and many international consumers as one of the world benchmarks for Saison beers. Attempt to explain the reasons for this global success.
“The Saison Dupont, the modern archetype of the style, has inspired so many brewers – and brewing poetry – that it must be talked about in any article or book dealing with farmhouse beer. Elegant in its intensity and in the balance of all its components (cereals, hops, ferments, water) it will have forever marked the imagination of thousands of tasters (…).”
“A brewer who has Dupont yeast is blessed by the Gods,” a lucky owner told me one day. »
“A wonderful aroma full of tropical fruits, fresh sea air, and earthy hopson a solid malt background; there is also a hint of cork and even light-stuck” character (in this case it is not unpleasant). Very well balanced with a fruity/spicy finish. World class. »
Quotes from the Dupont brewer? Nay! We owe them, in order, to the recognized authors and zythologists
Three experts – and we could cite others – who have presented in pages, articles, books or conferences the Saison Dupont as the absolute reference for the Saison style. But you still need to know what we’re talking about.
What is a Saison beer?
Let us take shelter one last time (promise) behind a quote, in this case from the beerologist Michael Jackson, still in his work “Great Beers of Belgium”: “This Walloon refreshment remains the most elusive of types of beers”, and later in the same book, “a Season cannot be defined with precision”. Indeed, the Saison style is complex to say the least.
Let’s immediately get rid of a romantic vision so reductive that it becomes false: Saison style beers were produced on farm breweries to give seasonal workers, during the harvest, a refreshing beverage. Of course, this could have happened, but it is wrong to reduce the reality of Seasons to this simple use. Moreover, the first occurrence of the Saison style appeared in Liège in 1823, where it was mainly consumed by workers and miners. It was only after the two world wars and the destruction of numerous urban breweries that the Saison style of beer took a lasting hold in the farm-breweries of Hainaut, which remained standing, and asserted its farm identity.
On the product side, here too, the reality is complex and changing. Originally spelled beers, blond, strong (up to 7% alcohol, enormous for the time!) but also amber or even brown, as shown by numerous labels from the end of the 19th century, often acidic, it was only in the second half of the 20th century that the Saison became an essentially blond and rather light beer (maximum 7% alc).
Saison Dupont, THE reference for Saison style
And the Dupont Season in all this? Born in 1844 in Tourpes in the heart of Belgian Hainaut, the Dupont brewery, then Rimaux-Derrider, has experienced all these developments which allowed it to find its way and build a seasonal beer today considered the benchmark. This singularity which makes it unique – but also its universality – owes it to a scrupulous respect for certain traditions: heating the material vat over an open fire, fermentation in square vats with a flat bottom, storing the beers horizontally, or even water drawn from the well, which is particularly hard.
Combined with ancestral know-how, these elements give birth to the different seasons of Brasserie Dupont:
Saison Dupont, Saison Bio, Dry Hop and Biolégère. Among them, the Saison Dupont stands out for its exceptional character: a dry mouth, assertive bitterness, fruity, floral and slightly spicy notes. So many qualities that give it unique drinkability, making it the essential reference for the seasonal style.
Want to know more? Visit the brewery!