One of the defining attributes of beer styles – for better or worse, given the often-inaccurate expectations that can accompany it – is color. For most pale styles, there is a darker analog, and vice versa. Often, those styles are closely related: think Pilsner and Schwarzbier, which despite a touch of roast are pretty similar, or Dunkelweizen and Weissbier. In the case of Saison, though, the pale and the dark “live” in the same style, both in terms of the style guidelines (which split out a wide color range of IPAs but still include just a single Saison) and in terms of the overall flavor and approach to the style. Dark Saison is, well, dark, but it also still features a complex and dry flavor profile, high carbonation, and a penchant for creative ingredient use that we’ve come to expect from artisanal, farmhouse styles. Despite its seasonal history (hence the name), I tend to brew Saison irrespective of the weather – but when the first frosty morning hits, it’s hard not to think of brewing up a spicy Dark Saison!
STYLE
Dark Saison doesn’t have an explicit style subcategory of its own, but that doesn’t mean the 2015 BJCP Guidelines are silent on it – quite the contrary, in fact. Laced throughout Category 25, Subcategory B is a reasonably clear picture of what a dark Saison probably ought to look like. Still spicy and complex but with more malt character than the pale Saison, there’s a significant amount of interpretative “room” here. Having said that, the guidelines are reasonably clear on roast levels in this beer: they should be very low to non-existent. That’s not to say that we can’t include some roast in the malt, for finish/mouthfeel purposes, but this isn’t some kind of Belgian Stout. At the same time, although the malt character is increasing, we should avoid the temptation to likewise increase the fruit, alcohol, or spice contributions: the guidelines are reasonably specific on this point, as they are with the roast: increasing maltiness may mask some of the traditional flavors, which means we’re shooting for a recipe that preserves them, just at a lower level.
This is not what I would consider an “intuitive” style to brew. The normal lessons for adjusting and re-balancing the recipe to account for what we’re adding don’t apply neatly, and we should instead be thinking in terms of taking a pale Saison and adding richer malt character, rather than starting from scratch with a “balanced” dark Saison that maintains the same flavors as the original, paler versions which have been increased to compete on an even playing field with the new malt flavors.