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<\/a>\nThe Au Baron restaurant has been in operation since 1976, but in 1989 Alain Bailleux and his father, Roger, decided to install a small brewery operation that has been going ever since, and now extending to a third generation in Xavier Bailleux. <\/p>\n
The brewery is best known for a beer Shelton also imports, Cuv\u00e9e de Jonquilles, named after the daffodils that surround the restaurant in the spring. But a variety of beer books I consulted are equally confused over what style to call it. <\/p>\n Better to just take it on its own merits, and my wee dram of the Cuv\u00e9e de No\u00ebl looked pretty in the glass, a mahogany beer with garnet highlights, complex dark, fruity and boozy aromas (my wife detected cherries, with some chocolate thrown in). It was all very alluring and the flavor was involving, tilted toward caramel sweet, though in the end seemingly a bit thin for what one might have expected from the nose and appearance. <\/p>\n The beer is a loaded-up version of the brewery\u2019s regular Saison Saint M\u00e9dard (which Shelton does not import), named after the patron saint of the town and the church depicted on the label. M\u00e9dard, or M\u00e9dardus, a rather obscure saint from the mid-first century, is said to have been frequently depicted laughing with an open mouth, and therefore is considered the patron saint against toothache. But he\u2019s also considered a patron saint of good weather and brewers.<\/p>\n \u00c9glise Saint-M\u00e9dard de Gussignies<\/p><\/div>\n Anyway, as I was pondering the label I noticed a finger of head in the 750-ml bottle, and this should have tipped me off that the unpasteurized, unfiltered, bottle-conditioned brew might have a goodly amount of sediment left in it. But I heedlessly poured more beer in the glass.<\/p>\n Into each life a little yeast must plop, or however Longfellow put it (in \u201cThe Rainy Day\u201d). Plop was the operative onomatopoeic word. There was such a plop into the glass that I was immediately reminded of the woman who sued Coca-Cola because she found a dead mouse in her soda bottle. <\/p>\n No vermin in this case, but the yeast went off in a big bang of floaters that expanded into the increasingly murky universe of my glass. It didn\u2019t work in favor of the beer. If Trump could speak French he might tweet \u201cDommage!\u201d <\/p>\n For my money ($14.50 in this instance), Saint M\u00e9dard fell a little down on the job handling my yeast problem. Still, I guess it\u2019s better than a toothache. <\/p>\n Name: Saison Saint M\u00e9dard Cuv\u00e9e de No\u00ebl [Dec. 20, 2017]<\/em><\/p>\n < 12 Beers of Christmas 4: Thiriez Bi\u00e8re de No\u00ebl<\/a><\/a>There are a variety of petite confusions<\/em> at work here. The brewery is sometimes called Brasserie Bailleux, sometimes Brasserie Au Baron. (I\u2019m going with the latter, since it\u2019s on the cork.) The Bailleux family is Belgian, but Gussignies is in France, albeit fewer than 300 yards from the Belgian border. Then there\u2019s the saison<\/em> versus bi\u00e8re de gardes<\/em> farmhouse ales question. The former is generally considered a Belgian style, the latter French. Since the family more or less straddles the border, they consider their beers to stylistically do the same. And on the Shelton Brothers website (the U.S. importers) the Cuv\u00e9e de No\u00ebl is called a bi\u00e8re de garde<\/em>. But right on the label it\u2019s called a saison<\/em>. Mon Dieu!<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>\n
\nBrewer: Brasserie Au Baron, Gussignies, France
\nStyle: Saison or Bi\u00e8re de garde, your choice
\nABV: 7%
\nAvailability: Seasonally. Imported by Shelton Brothers Inc., which distributes to 28 states and Washington D.C. Check their \u201cLocate Our Products<\/a>\u201d list to see if the beer might be near you.
\nFor More Information: www.brasseriethiriez.com<\/p>\n
\n12 Beers of Christmas 6: Ommegang Winter Is Here<\/a> ><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"