Logsdon Seizoen

Beer sellers: Beermongers

ABV: 7.5%
Origin: Hood River, Oregon, USA
Website: http://farmhousebeer.com

Logsdon Organic Farmhouse Brewery

Dave Logsdon has more than an average brewer’s interest in yeast – he was a founder of renowned yeast culture supplier Wyeast, as well as being the original brewer at what’s now one of Oregon’s most successful craft breweries, Full Sail. So it’s perhaps not surprising that when he set up his own brewery early in 2011 with business partner Charles Porter, he turned to Belgium, with its array of weird, wonderful and wild yeast cultures, for inspiration.

This is a true farmhouse brewery in the style still occasionally found in Belgium and northern France, located on an organic farm in deep countryside south of the city of Hood River and some way east of Portland. The farm’s herd of Highland cattle feast on the spent grains, and some of the hops used is grown on site. Dave is currently raising a crop of genuine Schaarbeek cherries intended for future authentic krieks, and meanwhile the fruit beers utilise other locally grown ingredients.

The Seizoen is the brewery’s flagship beer, its spelling recalling the rare Limburg variant of the style, Sezoens Blond, brewed by Martens at Bocholt, but the beer itself owes at least as much to the classic saisons from Hainaut in French-speaking Belgium, and a good deal to individual imagination. This last factor accounts for the inclusion of locally sourced pear juice, added during fermentation though not especially present in the final flavour.

I sampled Logsdon Seizoen on draught, unfiltered and unpasteurised, at the Beermongers in Portland, but it’s also available bottle conditioned in 750ml bottles with beeswax-sealed caps. It poured a cloudy light amber with a sunshine glow and a fine yellowy head. There was a hint of orchard fruit on the creamy aroma – I noted apple but perhaps it was the pear – alongside orange and a pleasanty fruity, farmhouse-tinged yeasty touch.

A chewy palate had fruity estery notes but was well integrated and smooth, with notes of nuts and bruised apple emerging, and more fresh orange notes with touches of mint and pineapple. A pleasant finish coated the mouth with tangerine fruit, turning very lightly bitter with a hint of almond-like hops. A wonderfully refreshing, complex and elegant glassful and certainly one of the best saison-inspired US craft brews that I’ve encountered to date.