Complex Numbers

Saison de Cueillette

It's time, once again, to talk about one of my favorite subjects.

    The Brewer Updating an Ancient French Beer for Modern Drinkers  
Thomas Deck’s cervoise-inspired brew is herbal and delicious.

Consider this:

Belgian beer is, generally, delicious.

British beer is, generally, delicious, though very different to Belgian beer.

French beer is, generally, ass.

I'm certainly not ragging on France, here. When it comes to wine, they're exceeded only by California (oh yeah I went there). But apart from the products of a few breweries near the borders of Belgium and Germany (which also makes fine brew), every French beer I've had has been disgusting.

But. My experience is limited, and things change...

But ancient Celtic inhabitants of modern France likely did indeed drink cervoise, an unhopped beer sometimes referred to as a gruit in English and whose consumption dates back to antiquity through the Middle Ages.

The prevalence of hops as an additive to beer, and then, later, an absolutely essential part of the holy nectar, is relatively recent, compared to the long history of beer itself. So it's no surprise that some of these early, Roman-era malt beverages did not use hops. (Hops, by the way, are a preservative, extending the life of a beer—essential in pre-refrigeration times. They also add a bitterness that nicely offsets the sweetness of the malt and alcohol.)

Traditional cervoise recipes, according to Malcolm F. Purinton, a professor who teaches the history of beer and alcohol at Northeastern University...

Nice job if you can get it.

...were likely sweetly herbaceous, infused chiefly with a trio of yarrow, wild rosemary, and sweet gale or bog myrtle—though they could also include other herbs and spices, depending on what was available.

Yeah, should have stuck to wine.

This year, Thomas Deck, a brewer based in the Paris area, set out to recreate a cervoise for the contemporary Parisian. Though he made a few modern updates for stability and flavor, “it’s a little bit inspired by, like, druids cooking something in a cauldron, and throwing herbs into it,” he says.

And we know druids did this because...? Well, never mind. Whatever the origin, it's beer, and I want to try it.

Deck could well have been destined for a brewing career from early childhood. He grew up in eastern French Alsace, which brews around 60 percent of all French beer, according to Visit Alsace. But it took a chance encounter with American home brewer Mike Donohue while studying abroad in Washington, D.C., for Deck’s eyes to be opened to the world of craft beer, then nearly absent from the French scene. Ten years later, in 2014, he and Donohue founded their own craft brewery—Deck & Donohue—in the Parisian suburbs. It was one of the first in a land that, to hear Deck tell it, had barely heard of IPA.

Yes. Alsace. Right up next to Germany. Like I said.

Incidentally, the French having barely heard of IPA was a point in their favor. Of all the styles of beer available, that's among my least favorite.

In the years since, Paris’s beer scene has witnessed a veritable explosion of craft brewers, many of whom lean hard into local sourcing, branding themselves with that oh-so-French word more frequently attributed to wine: terroir.

Eh? Really? Shit. Now I have to visit Paris. Oh no.

“Herbal is tricky because if you overdo it, it’s really disgusting,” he says. “You want it to be noticeable, but you don’t want it to be like … feeling like it’s an air freshener product.”

This guy gets it.

For his cervois experiment, he made the choice to deviate from historical accuracy and use a touch of Alsatian Nugget hops for stability and their bittering properties, boiling them to ensure that their aroma didn’t interfere with the flavor of the herbs. The result is more of a modern saison than an authentic cervoise, but Deck considers this an essential compromise.

There's a reason some things fall out of favor; it's generally because something new and better comes along. In this case, it was hops. So I see nothing wrong with adding a little to make it palatable and stable, if less "authentic." Especially since they're not sure what "authentic" really means.

This year, he has brewed just 2,000 liters of his cervoise-inspired beer. It’s fresh, herbal, and delicious, a simple, low-ABV, easy-drinking beer. If you didn’t know its backstory, you’d have no idea so much philosophy and research had gone into it. This rustic simplicity is reflected in its very name: Saison de Cueillette, or forager’s saison.

Yep... if this war ever ends, I'm going to France in addition to Belgium.

Tant de bières, si peu de temps. (So many beers, so little time.) I should make that my motto.