Bruery Saison Rue

Top Tastings 2011

ABV: 8.5%
Origin: Placentia, California, USA
Website: www.thebruery.com

The Bruery Saison Rue

The Bruery gets its name from a pun on the family name of founder Patrick Rue, and was first employed to designate his home brewing kit during his days as a law student. It was ported over when, having decided a career in brewing might offer more life satisfaction than a career in law, Patrick went commercial in 2008. The name seems curiously appropriate for an operation that’s both ambitious and still decidedly artisanal and idiosyncratic, focusing on distinctive and flavoursome unpasteurised beers, including Belgian-inspired and sour ales, often robust in alcohol, designed to match with food and conditioned in handsome 750ml bottles.

Located in Orange County, in the suburban sprawl around Los Angeles, the Bruery is a key name among a growing number of operations watering what was once something of a desert in one of the most craft beer-minded states. But its reputation is spreading much further, with Patrick tipped as a brewer to watch by US beer gurus like Sam Calagione.

Saison Rue is the closest the Bruery gets to a regular flagship beer. Inspired by both Wallonian saisons and Northern French bières de garde, this multiple award winner adds its own twist by including malted rye in the grist and a wild Belgian yeast strain in the final conditioning, giving it interesting ageing potential. I seized on the chance to buy a bottle – at a price – at the Great British Beer Festival in 2011.

The beer was a deep amber gold, rather lively with a fine creamy orange-tinged white head. Yeasty strawberry fruit and wet plastic wild yeast notes were apparent on a malty aroma with an emerging classic European hop character. The palate was very dry and very complex, though with notes of softening fruity sweetness. Spicy rye, herbal flavours and very slight sourness integrated perfectly with firm cereal malt and estery, almost varnish like alcoholic tones. A spicy, hoppyish finish had a slick of toffee malt, toast and herbal detergent notes and lasting vegetal hoppy dryness.

I wish I’d had the discipline to stash this splendid beer away for a couple of years as it clearly had the potential to age into something even more complex. But even relatively young, it’s a fine new saison, and a shining example of how US craft brewers are reinventing what were once obscure and declining beer styles from rural European backwaters.