Region & History

What is a saison? The beer takes its name from the season and hails from Hainaut, the French-speaking province in western Wallonia, right on the border with northern France. Large farms with barley fields once stood here, and on some of them beer was brewed in winter.

Tradition has it that farmers made the beer for the seasonal workers who helped with the summer harvest. In winter there was less to do on the farm, and it was cool enough for a clean fermentation. Whether it really happened this way is hard to prove, but the story gave the style its name.

In Silly, about forty kilometers southwest of Brussels, Marcelin Hypolite Mynbrughen founded his brewery in 1850 on the Cense de la Tour farm. He malted barley from his own harvest and brewed a beer every winter. According to the brewery, the craft has since passed from father to son across six generations.

In the village of Tourpes near Leuze-en-Hainaut, the story of Brasserie Dupont begins with a farm dating back to 1759. According to the brewery, this became a farmhouse brewery in 1844. Louis Dupont arrived in 1920 and brewed Saison Dupont there, and in 1945 his nephew Sylva Rosier, a brewing engineer, inherited the business.

Far to the south, on the Scourmont plateau near Forges, monks from Westvleteren founded a Trappist abbey in 1850. Brewing has taken place there since 1863. Chimay is permitted to carry the Authentic Trappist Product logo, which the International Trappist Association awards only to breweries inside or near monastery walls that operate under the monks' supervision.

There is no protected designation of origin for saison. The name is a style term with no legal protection, and unlike Kölsch, no convention ties it to a particular place.