Allagash Brewing Company created their saison in 2014 and tomorrow marks the 11th annual Saison Day. Locally Allagash Saison Day 2024, is taking place April 27th, beginning at noon at Bluejacket.

Bluejacket will feature five Allagash drafts and three reserve bottles: 

Bluejacket is releasing their very own new saison, Minimum Blues. The saison is a collaboration with Stillwater and local beer writer Phil Runco (who won a first-place North American Guild of Beer Writers award for his DC Beer article on Anchovy hops). The beer was fermented with Texas wildflower honey and conditioned on prickly pear. In addition to draft, 500ml bottles will be available for purchase to go.

bluejacket stillwater saison brew day
L to R: Phil Runco, Ro Guenzel, Greg Engert, Sam Morgan (ex-Stillwater, now of The Masonry), Brian ‘Stillwater’ Strumke. Pic via Runco.

“Minimum Blues is a tribute to my friend Eric Rohleder. Some people may know him as the founder of Cordial Wine & Spirits,” which you may know from locations at Union Market and then The Wharf, writes Runco. “Eric was diagnosed with peritoneal cancer in the fall of 2017 and passed away a year later. It was obviously a devastating loss to his friends and family. I don’t think I have the words to do it justice. For years, I’ve wanted to make a beer in tribute to him. Something that would be easygoing and carefree and, frankly, not sad. Eric never wanted people down in the dumps about his illness. One night at Andy’s Pizza a year ago, Tim Liu floated the idea of collaborating on a beer together at Bluejacket. I eventually, sheepishly, proposed the idea of Minimum Blues, knowing that it was a little heavy in its origins and probably not for anyone. Tim was immediately receptive and — after conferring with Greg and Ro — said that Bluejacket was game. It was, like, 45 minutes later. The idea for Minimum Blues was to make a southwest saison in DC with ingredients from Texas and Virginia — to represent the three places Eric called home. It’s brewed with ~70% Virginia Pils from Murphy & Rude. At the recommendation of Celestial Beerworks, we sourced wildflower honey from Walker Honey Farm in Rogers, Texas. The prickly pear brings a certain Southwest-ness to the beer. And as our mutual friend Jacque likes to joke, Eric was a prickly pear. The original recipe was written by Brian Strumke…. We brewed Minimum Blues in December, before my own cancer diagnosis. One of Eric’s brothers, Dan, flew up from Atlanta for the day to help make the beer. It only felt right to have a Rohleder involved in the production. All of this being said, I hope people enjoy this beer knowing absolutely none of this backstory. I hope people just open a bottle (naturally carbonated!) and don’t think once about everything that’s baked into it. I know it’s there. And I’m incredibly grateful to Tim and Greg and Ro and Brian for helping me to express it.”

Saison was once a beer style facing extinction, but today several breweries in and around DC make it. And despite DC’s biggest saison brewer, 3 Stars, closing in the summer of 2022, today there is saison to be had be it in bottle, can, or draft, brewed at Atlas, Bluejacket, Hellbender, Lost Generation, and Right Proper within city limits. A forthcoming saison that Lost Generation brewed with Bluejacket is news for excitement as co-owner Anne Choe sounded passionate when she told me the beer is brewed with Buddha’s hand fruit.

In 2012, when Barrett Lauer was running the District Chophouse brewery, he blended seven saison-style beers from 3 Stars, Capitol City, Chocolate City, DC Brau, Gordon Biersch, and Mad Fox, as well as his own to create Solidarity Saison. To our knowledge this feat has not been replicated in DC brewing history.

When Allagash Saison and Saison Day were born in 2014, DC brewers had flirted with saison but not pushed it out into distribution the way that the next decade would see 3 Stars grow and feed the area with kegs and cans of Peppercorn Saison. The next decade would also bring about the closure of Shelton Brothers distributing who brought in the Belgian brewery Brasserie De La Senne and their saison. Now Lime Ventures is stocking the De La Senne saison at fine establishments; if you’re looking for a bottle visit Hop Cask and Barrel.

Allagash saison day 2024 poster

Some of the saisons at Bluejacket will be sour or tart and some will not. If you prefer a more sour, tart, vinous, or funky saison consider the aforementioned Brasserie De La Senne’s Saison. De La Senne owner/brewer Yvan de Baets was in town last week and discussed his saison, which contains a portion of Brasserie Cantillon Lambic blended in. De Baets worked at Cantillon and to De Ranke breweries prior to forging his own path. Saisons from De La Senne and De Ranke provide a grand inspiration for American brewers looking to capture some of the magic found in their bottles. Allagash Belfius, available on Saturday, blends in Allagash’s coolshipped ale to similar effect. 

Replicating the tart, funky, earthy, and always refreshing variety of pale, phenolic beer from Belgium is no easy feat. To quote Chuck Cook in our most recent DC Beer Show [discussing American spontaneous beer] “it’s hard to brew a spontaneous beer. And a lot of American brewers have found that out. You can’t just copy Belgium. You can’t just take a yeast strain from a Cantillon bottle and try to make a beer out of it. It doesn’t work that way unfortunately.” Cook did praise Alexandria’s Mieza Blendery and further afield, Jester King, Allagash, and Russian River.

Fortunately for us, Mieza is a quick trip south of the District and Allagash is pouring at Bluejacket. Come celebrate Saison Day with us and thank your local brewer for keeping the flames of Saison burning bright.