The breweries say:
“Plans call for Saison du BUFF to be a 6% alc/vol Saison brewed with parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. This beer will be brewed three times, once at each brewery using the same recipe.”
Dogfish Head/Stone/Victory Saison du BUFF
Saison, 6.8% ABV
We dug into the herbal threesome that is the Saison du BUFF romantic triangle of beers recently. We’ve inspected similar experiments from breweries before – Freedom of 78 from Short’s and Half Acre come to mind – and as a fan of all three of the represented breweries, if nothing else it’d be an interesting look at what small factors go into the personalization of beer and how it comes out of each individual brewmasters hands.
Stone, Victory and Dogfish Head all bellied up to their brewkettles and produced the same recipe of beer. Build a strange, savory, herbal brew of sage, parsley, thyme and rosemary on top of a saison backbone and you’ve got the Saison du BUFF, three takes on one beer from three top breweries. We drank ‘em all, and here’s what we thought:
Karl: To be honest, I didn’t think these beers looked very appealing at all. The Stone SdB had a ridiculously pillowy, frothy head on it while the others looked kinda flat, and they all had that same pilsner-y yellow hue going for them. To be honest, I thought they looked like piss. Fortunately, they tasted better.
The Victory barrelled out of the bottle with a huge flavor of rosemary and sweetness up front. The sage became more prominent as a few minutes passed, which had a sort of drying effect on the taste. Otherwise it had just a touch of fruit flavor, light hints of sweet citrus, but nothing really kicked my ass too hard or overpowered. You could reduce this and baste potatoes in it, probably – it was definitely savory but had a good balance.
The DfH SdB (guess who loves acronyms) sparkled with carbonation, huge floral scents and definitely had a large herbal profile as well. More than anything, though, it was lemony-tart and just a bit sour, and actually reminded me of a nice fizzy Italian lemon-ice soda with a sprig of rosemary. It was weird, but I dug it. It was refreshing, interesting and satisfying. I didn’t really know why I liked it – but I did.
This leaves us with the Stone, which poured that aforementioned huge pillowhead and was the cloudiest out of all the beers. It was damn near opaque compared to the clarity you saw in the Victory and Dogfish offerings.
from L to R; Victory, Stone & Dogfish Head
The flavor was mild to the point of not popping out almost at all, the body was a bit creamy and it almost served as a palate cleanser to go from one of the other brews to the third. Not great.
If you’re afraid of the presence of green leafy stuff in your beer, don’t worry – it’s not offputting in the slightest (we’ve had herbal beers that were damn close to bad medicine, see also: South Shore Herbal Cream Ale ). For my money, grab the Dogfish first.
Andrew: My first experience with a beer that had, as Karl puts it, “green leafy stuff” in it was the Honey Basil beer from Right Brain Brewery. While I was somewhat hesitant to try it, “Basil in a beer? What is this, marinara sauce?”, I thought it was an absolute home run. Now, getting into the Saison du BUFF, with my enjoyment for all things green and leafy in my beer, I was pumped.
Full disclosure: I’ve had both the Dogfish Head and the Stone versions of the SdB prior to this tasting, but not side-by-side, so would I be able to tell the difference between the three? Turns out, yes.
Since I had yet to try the Victory, I’ll start with that. I can probably begin and end the review with rosemary, rosemary and more rosemary. Kind of reminded me of one of my favorite restaurants in Springfield called Augie’s Front Burner. Their food was excellent but I felt like the chef had a thing for rosemary…no matter what you ordered, fish, chicken or steak, it came out with a fresh sprig of rosemary stabbed in it. I also noted the Victory was the clearest of the three and had a very earthy taste tones to it.
The Stone was a bit cloudier than the Victory and frankly tasted a bit like lemon sorbet, you know – what you are served to cleanse your pallet at fancy restaurants. The rosemary wasn’t nearly as prominent as we saw in the Victory, and I picked up on a bit of mint, the lemon and sage and thyme. Frankly I wasn’t all too impressed with Stone’s take on the SdB when compared to the other two.
Which brings us to the Dogfish Head. The rosemary was even less intense than the Stone, but it was matched almost perfectly with the thyme, sage, citrus and floral notes. The DfH was also much smoother than the Stone – not sure if the almost too much carbonation in the Stone was on purpose, but I thought the DfH was a much softer, easier drink.
Which was my favorite? I’ve gone back and forth on this. Stone was easily eliminated from contention and I really did enjoy both the Victory and the Dogfish Head. So based on the balance of the flavors alone, I’ll tip my cap to Dogfish Head on this one.
Ryan: Much like Karl and Andrew, I too was surprised at how the Stone version of this beer stacked up to the other three. When I think of Stone I think of angry beers with menacingly high ABV’s and taste bud destroying hops. But this Stone beer seemed somewhat restrained. None of the spices were overpowering. Instead you got a nice mix of thyme, mint and citrus on the palate and a bright citrusy finish. Despite being the least aggressive, I may have enjoyed this one the most because it was so easy drinking. I’d be remiss if I, too, didn’t mention the smokestack-like billowing head that seemed to reach for the heavens out of our glasses. General cloudiness aside, the head made for a gorgeous looking beer.
If the Stone beer was generally cloudy the Dogfish Head version was, as Karl put it, “damn near opaque.” There was no shot at seeing anything through this murky brew. And not only did it look heavy but it smelled heavy and tasted heavy too. Big whiffs of sage and thyme sat like an elephant in your nose and the spices didn’t back off any when you take a sip either. There is some balance there, though, with flavors of lemon zest and parsley pushing past the spice rack that is DFH’s SdB.
From cloudy, to super-cloudy, to clear-as-day – the Victory version of this beer poured the lightest and resembled a crisp pilsner more than a farmhouse ale. This beer passed our pen test, which may sound complicated but consists of holding a pen on the other side of the glass and seeing if we can see it through the beer. Rocket scientists we are not. Despite the water appearance, I was able to distinguish the most spices in this one. Lots of rosemary on the nose and on the palate along with some parsley and thyme in the finish. This beer is very earthy and very spicy, but that is offset by an almost champagne-like carbonation that creates a sparkly and lively beer.
It’s tough to rank the three considering all had redeemable qualities. The Stone version was the least abusive to my taste buds but it was also the easiest to drink. Dogfish Head’s offering was by far the heaviest, and sometimes I felt like I needed to pick whole leaves of parsley out of my teeth, but that made for a fun beer. The Victory version, while looking the least menacing with it’s clear and lean body, posed the biggest challenge because it appeared to have the most going on in the glass. I guess it all depends on what you’re in the mood for.