Saison Du BUFF

The Victory version

Overall I’m not a huge fan of most “saison style” beers.  The “style” in general is too all over the map which generally has lead to me often being let down. That does not mean that I am completely dismissive of saison beers in a couple of my favorite beers have been saisons. Among my favorite commercial beers are Guava Grove from Cigar City and Colette by Great Divide both of which are saisons.  On the homebrew side my BeanyTink’s Farmstead Ale is a saison/farmhouse style ale and is one of my favorite beers not to mentions some of my friends saisons.

One saison style beer that I’ve enjoyed several times is the Victory/Stone/Dogfish Head collaboration Saison Du BUFF.  A few weeks back I was waiting for some guys to come over and decided to warm up with a bottle I had in the BeerVault and give it a quick review.  This review is for the Victory version to date I’ve had all three versions and think the Victory is one of the better versions.

12 ounce Victory bottle poured into homebrew fest glass.  The enjoy or best by date is smudged so I can’t read it.

Appearance: Crystal clear, pale yellow almost straw like gold.  Pours with a good ½ inch whitehead made up of small tiny bubbles, lacing holds the side of class well.  

Great color and clarity

Aroma: Immediately I get the spiciness I’ve come to expect from this beer, there is some clove not overly funky.  I can slightly perceive the herbs they’ve used.  It took me a while to identify what I smelled; it was familiar but not something that I associate with beer.  Upon reading the side of the bottle I determined it was the rosemary.  

Mouthfeel: The beer is medium to light bodied, the bubble dance on the back my palate.

Taste:  Probably my favorite non-farmhouse / funky saison.  The spiciness from the yeast is not overpowering nor is it underwhelming, just an all around clean crisp beer.  I’m detecting no off flavors from fermentation and the finish really nice and crisp, very enjoyable

Overall: This is probably my favorite of the Stone collaboration beers that I have had to date.  Ironically I don't really get much Stone influence in it,  I get the Victory, I get a little bit of the Dogfish Head but not the Stone, probably due to the restraint in the hops.  Overall really nice summer beer that was a great follow up to the spicy smoked gouda pizza that I had made for dinner.  As I said definitely a good commercial saison, it is borderline between the ones that I like and the ones I do not.

In closing I am going to offer up the official collaboration video that Stone put out about a year ago when the beer was launched 

Dogfish Head / Victory / Stone Saison du BUFF from stonebrew on Vimeo.