After a lengthy hiatus the podcast is back with a new episode, a blind tasting featuring eight different saisons. In our quest to find the one saison to rule them all, we are joined by BJCP beer judge (and recently crowned SODZ brewer of the year) Bill Koeppen and number one All Things Beer fan Robert Nauman. Steward extraordinaire Ralph Wolfe reprises his role from the Great Pilsner Taste Off. The field includes two Belgian saisons (Saison Dupont and Fantome Pissenlit), two old-school American saisons (Ommegang Hennepin and Boulevard Tank 7), two canned saisons (Off Color Apex Predator and Yellow Springs Captain Stardust), and two Ohio-brewed mixed fermentation saisons (Little Fish Saison du Poisson and Jackie O’s Pockets of Sunlight). Can Dupont, the mother of all saisons, be bested? Can a canned saison really compete? Will the judges be able to pick out the mixed fermentation entries? You’ll have to listen to find out.
(NOTE: During the layoff we upgraded our sound board, but failed to figure how to use the new tech prior to the recording session. Consequently, the sound quality on this one isn’t quite up to our usual standards. We apologize in advance and promise to fix the issue going forward, but if the quality is too distracting just drop me a line and I’ll be happy to share the final results.)
Don’t forget you can find this episode and earlier ones on our podcast page, as well as Apple Music, Podbean, Spotify, Stitcher, and various other podcast apps. Just search for the All Things Beer podcast, and don’t hesitate to leave a comment or a rating.
Beers Featured
- Saison Dupont
- Fantome Pissenlit
- Ommegang Hennepin
- Boulevard Tank 7
- Yellow Springs Captain Stardust
- Off Color Apex Predator
- Little Fish Saison du Poisson
- Jackie O’s Pockets of Sunlight
Pat's Pints 
I’m going to listen to this tomorrow with a Saison duPont, but my rankings for the 5 I have tried would be Saison duPont, Apex Predator, Hennepin, Capt Stardust, and Tank 7. I look forward to listening tomorrow to see if I’m close.
All five of those are good, though my order was somewhat different. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but let me know once you’ve finished listening. We didn’t do a great job identifying our order in the podcast, but in the taste off of the final three there was unanimous agreement about 1st, 2nd and 3rd.
Very interesting. Obviously, Saison duPont dominated. It’s always interesting when you drink a beer like that if you love it because is, in fact, great, or because you know what it is, and you think you should think it’s great. You settled it for this; Saison duPont is a great beer.
You make a great point Bill. The modern notion of what it means to be a saison is heavily influenced by Dupont. Which raises an interesting question, how can a beer improve upon the archetype upon which it’s based.
I will say that the quality of a Dupont is a real thing that comes through even in a blind taste, decade after decade.
The battle for second place was a much tighter race. Although it didn’t make the final cut (due to poor audio quality) we picked Tank 7 second and Captain Stardust third.
Thanks for listening Bill! Impossible to beat out Saison DuPont!