Tag Archives: bière de garde

Beer of the Week – Gayant La Goudale

This article was originally written in March 2007 for the food & drink website Taste T.O., and republished here in September 2011 (but back-dated to match the original publication date) after the Taste T.O. blog was shut down and taken offline.

It would be a bit of an understatement to say that France is not known for having a great beer culture. After all, it’s one of the countries most synonymous with wine, and most people would be hard pressed to name a single French beer. (No, Brador doesn’t count.)

But in the Northern region of the country known as Nord Pas-de-Calais, the influence of Belgium holds a lot of sway (as indicated by the area’s colloquial name of French Flanders), and a beer style known as bière de garde is the drink of choice. Translated as “beer for storage”, bières de garde are strong ales (usually 5% to 7.5%) that were originally brewed by farmers in the spring to last through the summer months when the warm weather made brewing more difficult. This farmhouse pedigree makes them a cousin to the Belgian saison, a style that is more common in North America thanks to the popularity of Saison Dupont.

It’s a shame that we don’t get more of these beers over here, as they can be just as interesting and varied as saisons and other traditional European styles. One that is available in Ontario now is La Goudale from Les Brasseurs De Gayant, although you’ll have to hunt for it as it’s only available via private ordering from the import agency Roland + Russell.

While saisons tend to be hazy in appearance, bières de garde are usually clear and bright, and this one is no exception as it pours a clear golden colour with a moderate white head. There’s lots of wheat and yeast in the aroma, as well as some herbal tea notes. The mouthfeel is slightly sticky, and the flavour is quite sweet and honeyish to start, followed by a dry herbal finish. As it warms up, the 7.2% alcohol comes to the forefront a bit too much, but it’s still quite a palatable beer that would pair well with rustic farmhouse meals, or with a heaping serving of moules frites. Contemplate it for a while and you’ll probably find characteristics that bring to mind the strong ales of Belgium, even more proof that when it comes to beer, traditions are generally built around the shared histories of historical regions rather than modern national borders.

We've Got The Funk

Work has been kicking my ass lately, so posts here have been few and far between. This should soon change – at least temporarily – as I’m heading down to New York City next week for a course, and I plan to spend my evenings doing some beer-hunting with daily reports to follow.

But in the meantime, I thought I’d give a quick mention about a tasting that I had with the usual crew a couple of weeks ago, where we sampled the wares of two of the most unique breweries on earth: Cantillon and Jolly Pumpkin.

Cantillon are a family-owned concern in Brussels, Belgium that has been brewing traditional lambics for over 100 years. They’re one of the few breweries still producing true, unadultrated lambics and as such they’ve become renowned amongst beer connoisseurs. Their beers are admittedly an aquired taste, as they are remarkably tart and dry, with strong flavours that get tagged with names like “funk” and “barnyard” and “horse-blanket”. Yeah, they may not sound very appealing, but once you get a taste for ’em, there’s really nothing like ’em.

As for Jolly Pumpkin, they’re a much newer brewery that started up a few years ago in Dexter, Michigan. Unlike a lot of craft breweries that start out with a couple of popular styles – like pale ale or pilsner or stout – before starting on the weird shit, these guys went straight to the weird shit and never looked back. According to their website, they specialize in “open fermentation, oak barrel aging, and bottle conditioning”, but that only begins to describe the wonderful and wacky beers that they produce. They only comperable brewery I can think of is Fantome, a Belgian farmhouse brewery that offers a similarly eclectic line-up of beers, many of which fall into the nebulous bière de garde category.

Along with a few other things, we managed to make it through eight of the nine pictured bottles. I didn’t take notes on all of them as I’d tasted & reviewed a few of them before, but my thoughts on all of them, whether reviewed at this tasting or previously, can be found on their RateBeer pages linked here:

Jolly Pumpkin Luciernaga (The Firefly) Belgian Ale
Jolly Pumpkin Bière de Mars Bière de Garde
Jolly Pumpkin Oro de Calabaza Bière de Garde
Jolly Pumpkin Calabaza Blanca Witbier
Jolly Pumpkin La Roja Bière de Garde
Cantillon Saint Lamvinus Fruit (Grape) Lambic
Cantillon Lou Pepe Framboise Fruit (Raspberry) Lambic
Cantillon Iris Lambic