Brasserie de la Senne in Texas Y'all

Starting this Friday, September 16th, we’re very excited to be serving beer from Brasserie de la Senne in our tasting room. Brasserie de la Senne, like Jolly Pumpkin, Fantôme, Thiriez, and Cantillon, is among our greatest influences. Founder Yvan de Baets is one of the most knowledgeable and talented brewers we know. He’s had a direct influence on several of our core principles and techniques, namely mixed culture fermentation, balancing acidity, restraint when it comes to vegetables, herbs, and spices, bière de coupage (cutting young beer with old), and fermentation vessel geometry, just to name a few. Kollaborationsbier — our collaboration with Live Oak Brewing Company — is highly influenced by Brasserie de la Senne Taras Boulba, which for me is the ultimate combination of malt, hop, and yeast character, along with incredible drinkability.

Want to learn something about beer and brewing? Watch this video of Yvan. His Craft Brewers Conference lectures are also vital listening for brewers, if you choose to seek those out. Yvan is the source of my favorite quote about Saison, which he gave in Phil Markowski’s Farmhouse Ales:

“A saison must therefore be low in alcohol (in the modern — and Belgian — sense of the word in any case), around 4.5 to 6.5%. It must be highly attenuated (90 to 95% on average, if not more, as apparent attenuation) and dry. It must also be either sour or very bitter (with a bitterness obtained by the use of a massive amount of hops low in alpha acid). It shouldn’t in any case be smooth. If spices are used, it must be with the utmost moderation. A saison is not by any means a spice soup. Ideally, it should be fermented, at least partially, by wild yeasts as well as by cultured varieties. An authentic saison has a small “wild” side, rustic, indefinable, far from the clean aspect of certain engineered beers of today. In one word, it must have extraordinary character.”

Yvan is a wonderful guy, and a joy to be around when we’re lucky enough to see him throughout the year.

Our whole staff here at Jester King have been waiting for Brasserie de la Senne to make it to Texas for a long time. Our high state licensing fees don’t make it easy for beer from small breweries to enter our state! Fortunately, thanks to help from our friends at Shelton Bros. Importers and Flood Independent Distribution, it’s available starting tomorrow. On draft, we’ll be pouring Taras Boulba and Zinnebir. At bottles to go, we’ll have Taras Boulba, Zinnebir, Brusseleir, Stouterik, and Jambe de Bois.

Again, we’re thrilled and honored to be pouring Brasserie de la Senne beer at our tasting room. We plan on pouring it here absolutely as much as availability will allow.

Jeffrey Stuffings
Founder
Jester King Brewery