“Do one thing well” is a refrain you’ll hear often when talking to brewers, but moving from principle to action is harder than most think. Going all-in on saison was a risky move in 2010 for Fort Collins, Colorado-based Funkwerks, as the style was a commercially underappreciated one at best, but partners Gordon Schuck and Brad Lincoln had the vision and talent to stick to their guns. They’ve since brought home a handful of gold and silver medals from the Great American Beer Festival and World Beer Cup for their Belgian-style beers and have earned the respect of fellow brewers around the world.
With that focus on Belgian styles in his brewing, it’s no surprise that Schuck’s six pack of meaningful and inspirational beers is focused on classics of the oeuvre and best-of-the-best American riffs.
New Belgium La Folie (Fort Collins, Colorado)
When I first started homebrewing and exploring Belgian styles, La Folie was one of the first sour beers I tried. Peter Bouckaert is a legend in the industry; that really was an inspiration for me. The first time I tasted La Folie, it was exotic. I’d never had anything like it. How the sour came through as a tart cherry character—it was something that was unique. When I first wanted to get into professional brewing, I dreamed of owning a brewery someday—or starting my own—but really I wanted to work at New Belgium. I tried to get a job there for at least eight years—I sent resumes, tried to get a foot in the door, but dreams only get you so far.
As great as it was, La Folie has only gotten better over the years—it’s a lot more balanced. When my memory goes back to those original bottles, it’s hard to gauge based on palate then and now, but they really have it dialed in today.
For the Oud Bruin we do here, that’s one of the beers we’re trying to emulate as best we can—we have our own house character but aspire to that same balance and drinkability. A lot of sour beers tend to get too vinegary and too sour. But they manage to stay away from that. Lauren [Salazar, blend er for New Belgium sour beers] is a master of what she does. Every year she says it’s a little unique, and she has a philosophy for it but is open to the variability year to year.
With sour beer, there’s a lot more rolling the dice, waiting on things, and tasting things. You can’t really engineer a sour beer—you do everything you can to nudge it in certain directions, but at the end of the day it’s going to be what it will be. You just need to know what the barrels want to do, know what the microorganisms want to do, and go in the direction they’re going.
Saison Dupont (Tourpes, Belgium)
When we were first starting, we messed around with a lot of different ways to make our saison—with spices and multiple yeasts for example—but ultimately decided we wanted to pare it down to the bare essentials of a saison, and for us Saison Dupont captures the essence of saison. It’s so complex and interesting. And if you look at the base recipe, it isn’t that complicated—there’s no spice, it’s a very simple grain bill, simple hops—but the way they’ve managed their fermentation is what makes that beer special.
We emulated that in our philosophy for our beer. Not that the ingredients in our beer are exactly the same as what they do, but I really wanted to focus on the fermentation for our saison and have that be the defining thing. For me, saisons really need to be dry. The characteristics we find most appealing that Dupont has is that dryness and that estery, fruity quality they get from the fermentation.
To get that, it’s pretty basic. We step mash, which a lot of people don’t do—either they can’t do it, or it’s faster not to. I find you can get a dryer beer if you go through the steps. For fermentation we knock out at 67°F (19°C) and let it free rise to 80°F (27°C). I know Dupont goes as high as 90°F (32°C) or so, but I’m a little more skittish.
For me, it’s lucky Dupont was one of the last holdouts [of the saison style] and became the benchmark for the style. There are plenty of other brewers pushing other variations with spices—Fantôme does some pretty wild things, and then there are Brett saisons—but as far as honing it down to just the bare essentials, Dupont is the one I go to. There are a lot of wild and out-there saisons, but I always come back to Saison Dupont to get my grounding again.
Drie Fonteinen Oude Gueuze (Beersel, Belgium)
This is one that’s more a result of personal experience. I’ve had Cantillon and others, and wasn’t that familiar with Drie Fonteinen until we went to Belgium. On our first day, we drove straight there, and it was the first brewery we visited. Tasting it on tap was a revelation. A lot of stuff we get over here is dated, and things are going to go more sour over time. I was impressed by how balanced it was and not necessarily sour. Americans, we try to emulate the sourness, but we miss that complexity and magical balance of all the elements coming together. It was tart, lemony—almost a quinine tonic—but just a beautiful, drinkable beer.
It was the freshness of the beer that made me realize that sour beers are more than just sour. There’s a complexity there that sometimes gets missed.
Boulevard Brewing Saison Brett (Kansas City, Missouri)
This and Dupont are two of my favorite saisons. I first had it when I got out of brewing school, and I wasn’t familiar with Boulevard. That beer opened my eyes to Brett. The way they incorporated it in that beer is different than Orval, but it was really interesting how they put it into saison. The dryness, the effervescence of it. It’s a beautiful beer.
From my understanding, Tank 7 is somewhat the base for Saison Brett, although they vary a little bit. But you drink the two side by side and they’re completely different beers. Saison Brett is very dry; the Brett pulls a lot of those esters right out and brings everything down to a more subtle level. Tank 7 is very hoppy, very fruity, and estery. Finding that balance is difficult—Brett is difficult to tame. But they’ve been able to dial that beer in consistently. Year to year there’s some variation, but it’s within a tight tolerance, and that says a lot about their mastery of fermentation and the brewing process.
Orval (Villers-devant-Orval, Belgium)
This was the first Brett beer I ever had, and I remember thinking, “This is strange.” I wouldn’t describe it as horse blanket, but a woody, musty character that’s backed up by the amber maltiness. It’s very dry in the finish. Then over the years, I’ve had that beer in different situations—in brewing school we went to the monastery and drank it on tap at the source, which is very different than the bottle stuff I’ve had. That was another revelation—how much that beer changes as it ages. Young, it’s almost like a pale ale with very subtle Brett in the background. Then as it ages, those hops drop out and the Brett comes forward making it a dry, effervescent Brett beer.
When you go back 5–10 years ago, nobody was doing Brett the way Orval was doing Brett. Now it’s become commonplace, but no one has been able to equal that. Their consistency, the way they use the Brett without letting it get away and produce off-flavors—they really know how to use that microorganism in their process. For a lot of brewers nowadays, that was our first exposure to a Brett beer.
When we first started, we wanted to emulate their focus. I didn’t want to do ten different styles from all over the world; I really wanted to do one beer and do it well. So starting out, they were one of the breweries I looked to as trying to do one beer as best they can. Don’t worry about trying to jump on every new fad.
With so many breweries out there, you really need to ask “what are we?” and then go for that. That’s what we did with our saison—decided it was going to be our flagship and put our effort into it. Someone once told me that Ferrari never had a problem selling every car they made. When you do something on a small scale and do it absolutely to perfection, it will sell.
Allagash White (Portland, Maine)
I love white beers, and it was Celis White that opened my eyes to what beer could be beyond your typical Bud/Miller/Coors. I love white beers in general—there’s a lot of stuff going on, but they’re not over the top in any way. The guys at Allagash have really nailed the style as far as I’m concerned. It’s spiced in such a way that no one spice stands out or calls attention to itself, and it all blends together seamlessly.
That core beer gives them room to experiment with more challenging styles. Similarly, our core lineup—Saison and Tropic King—really sets us up with the security to take chances on barrel-aged projects.
My first memory of Allagash White was from GABF—I started going around 2001 and always sought out Russian River, Allagash, Ommegang—those were my go-tos at GABF as I was first getting into beer.
When you’re a homebrewer, you dream of making beer, but the whole selling beer thing isn’t in your mind. When we first opened, I never even thought about customers, and when they showed up, I was like “Wow, they’re buying our beer.” I never expected or dreamt we’d become as successful as we have now.
PHOTO: MATT GRAVES