Hennepin, Brewery Ommegang

Over four fifths of Americans and almost three quarters of Europeans live in cities.  In many ways these cities are mankind's crowning achievement.  The stark differences between nature and metropolis lead Agent Smith from the Matrix to deem humans not mammals.  But for some reason we look to rural life and pine for its simplicity.  It's easy to forget that we probably had good reasons to move out.  We picture a rural life that used to look like this,

Home made crepes with toasted walnuts and hazelnut spread.

when it really looks and probably has always looked more like this.

Broccoli omelette with cheese.  (At a restaurant.)

The point is, we connect rurality to high quality when quite often it's the other way around.  Now our image of the idyllic, wholesome countryside is not all in our heads.  There are places where it does exist, but it feeds off the productivity of city dwellers, either through sales or via the equipment that makes economies of scale in farming possible.  Today's beer is a saison, which is a style that lives in this idyllic countryside.  An alternative name for saison is farmhouse ale, referring to the agrarian Belgians that created it as a drink for summer and harvest days spent out working the fields.  However, to believe their farmhouse ales are the same as the ones we have today would require you to ascribe to the idea that people in the past were fundamentally different than those in the present.  I think it's the beer that's changed.  The beer I will be tasting was made in New York by Brewery Ommegang, not Belgium, but it'll represent the modern state of saison.  After all, Ommegang is owned by Moortgat, the Belgian makers of Duvel.  If it's good enough for Duvel, it's good enough for me!

Brewery Ommegang's Hennepin

First off, take a look at that glass.  Does that look like the kind of glass you have just sitting around in you knapsack while you cut wheat or detassel corn?  The aroma is incredibly complex.  The yeast produce bready notes and the lemony, fruity fragrances of Belgian beers.  For a field hand of any era, these smells are a far cry from those found in the bud lights of today's working man.  Time for the sip.  ...  Oh dear.  ... I don't think I can go back to work.  It's just so good.  The balance is masterful.  It's like a balsamic vinaigrette in that the flavors are intertwined, but don't completely blend together.  There's a sharp bite and a smooth maltiness but they don't counteract each other where they overlap.  Instead, you've got dueling sensations that meet more like a choreographed dance than a fight.  Think Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.  It'll take my entire lunch break to finish it and then I'll just want another.  Which leads to the next reason this can't be the original saison.  At 7.7% ABV this beer is definitely not sessionable.  I'm not going to down two or three of these and go back to work at full productivity.  No, the saison of old Belgium clocked in more around 3.5% or lower.  Finally there's the price.  Ten bucks a four pack is not exactly gonna get you picked up and taken to a work site.  So if the modern saison is a working man's beer, that working man is now a CPA or lawyer.  And that very well could be the case.  Only 2.6% of Belgians live in rural areas today.  Maybe that's why the style is so hoity toity.

But seriously, this is a really good beer.