saison

noun

sai·​son ˌsā-ˈzän 

variants or less commonly Saison

plural saisons also Saisons

: a usually dry, light-colored, highly carbonated ale that typically has a spicy or fruity flavor

The hazy golden saison is highly complex, snappy and effervescent, citrusy and spicy, with echoes of bubble gum and … bitterness enduring long after your last sip.

—Joshua M. Bernstein

Upcoming beer releases include saisons aged on apricots, elderberries and white wine grapes, offering a delightful array of flavours.

—Joyce Leung

… attracts patrons with a large selection of beer and styles that include Saisons, stouts, sours, ports, pilsners, and IPAs.

—Robert Levey

Examples of saison in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Farmhouse Ales: Saisons, biere de garde, and other farmhouse ales are known for their spicy, sometimes peppery notes, usually from the yeast they’re brewed with. —Jay Brooks, The Mercury News, 4 Sep. 2024

This bank-turned-brewery focuses on small-batch beers in various styles — like session-able blondes, lagers, West Coast IPAs, sours, saisons and porters. —Laura Barrero, Axios, 1 Aug. 2024

Eventually, there will be barrel-aged beers, sours and saisons. —Jonathan Shikes, The Denver Post, 1 May 2024

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from French, short for bière de saison "seasonal beer"; saison going back to Old French saisun, seison "weather, lapse of time, season" — more at season entry 1

Note: In nineteenth-century discussions of Belgian brewing, the brown beers of Liège are distinguished as either bière jeune "young beer" or bière de saison. According to Jean-Baptiste Vrancken, bière jeune is drunk immediately after it is brewed while bière de saison "is made only in the cold season and has to be kept a more or less lengthy period before it can be served" ("… qu'on ne fait que dans la saison froide, et qui doit se conserver plus ou moins longtemps, avant de pouvoir servir à la consommation"; Antwoord op Vraag 81/Réponse sur la Question proposée sous le n.o 81 par la Société de physique expérimentale de Rotterdam, Rotterdam, 1829, p. 194.) The distinctions between bière jeune and bière de saison are specified a little differently by the brewer Georges Lacambre: "They [bière jeune and bière de saison] are two kinds of somewhat amber-colored beers, especially the second, which is a rather strong beer for keeping consumed four to six months after its making, and which is hardly ever made outside of the good [i.e., right, proper] season, from which it doubtless takes its name …" ("Ce sont deux espèces de bière assez ambrées, surtout le second, qui est une bière de garde assez forte qu'on ne consomme que quatre à six mois après sa fabrication, et qu'on ne prepare guère que dans la bonne saison d'où elle a sans doute tiré son nom …"; Traité complet de la fabrication des bières et de la distillation des grains, tome premier (Brussels, 1851), p. 376.)

First Known Use

1993, in the meaning defined above