St-Feuillien & Green Flash Friendship Brew Tasting

So last Friday I went down to Osaka for a beer tasting I organized to compare the two black saisons which were brewed by St-Feuillien in Belgium & Green Flash in California. I also added St-Feuillien's Saison to act as a kind of baseline of what a saison should be like.

Ajen & I lucked out with the weather being a perfect (though incredibly hot) summer day. Thankfully, Nakanoshima park had a nice breeze going on so we were quickly able to get down to business.

from left to right Saison, St-Feuillien Black Saison & Green Flash Friendship Brew

I started with the regular St-Feuillien Saison which had a sweet golden ale kind of aroma, a clear gold color & a nice farmhouse flavor profile of spice, a hint of hay in the finish and a bit of bitterness in the aftertaste. A really refreshing beer that perfectly matched the hot summer weather. It is a great straight saison and available in Japan at a decent price to boot.

I moved onto the St-Feuillien Black Saison 6.5%, the aroma was fairly mild but had a hint of chocolate. The color was a really dark brown and the flavor was of roast coffee, chocolate with a mildly bitter finish. I didn't get so many saison type characteristics from it, just perhaps a hint of farmhouse flavors at the start which were then lost in the malty sweet body. Very smooth & very nice.

The final beer of this tasting was Green Flash's take on the Black Saison, their Friendship Brew at 5.7%. I heard from Dominique Friart last week that they followed the same recipe but they must have done more than use different equipment! These beers were quite different, I think that the hopping schedule at the least must have been different...

Green Flash's version was a bit darker in color than St-Feuillien's but had tons more aroma! An interesting peppery/spicy aroma wafted out of my glass. The flavor was pretty bitter & much more hop forward with some pine, pepper & spice notes.

We felt that in the St-Feuillien version the malts were the star of the show whereas Green Flash highlighted the hops. We preferred St-Feuillien Black Saison that night though Ajen had liked Green Flash more the first time he'd done this kind of tasting. 

Since they each such different feels we decided to blend them to see what would happen...

...success! Suddenly, the mouthfeel became creamier, the malts melted a bit into the background while the peppery flavor and aroma became more subdued. It seemed better balanced as a blend. Very drinkable. Truly a friendship that works well together!

To recap, all the beers we tried were quite good and well made. St-Feuillien stayed true to their roots with the malts shinning and Green Flash lived up to their reputation with a hoppy beer. I look forward to seeing what they do with their next collaboration an IPA.