Behind the Bar - Tulsa Twister Farmhouse Saison

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Author: Barmacral Tigana

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The most common style of beer today is the American light lager and other related lagers. This is embodied in many many different brands, a couple of the most common being Coors Light and Heineken. Most often these various brands are advertised as being refreshing and a perfect beer for the summer. With summer coming up in a few months I thought I'd shed some light on another style of beer that is less known than the lager but far more flavourful and wonderfully refreshing on a hot summer day. This month the beer I am reviewing is Tulsa Twister, a farmhouse saison made in collaboration between Amager Brygghus and Prairie Artisanal Ale.

Clocking in at 7.5% this saison is very pale and very hazy. It has a large clean white head that disappears fairly quickly and a nose that has both oranges and reminds me of being on a farm. This farm aspect is rooted in the history of the style, as these beers were originally brewed (and consumed) by the farmhands while they weren’t out working the fields around Belgium and France. The flavour is fruity and crisp with a slighty bitter finish to it that lingers for a few moments before fading off with some grapefruit notes.

Rating: 4/5 – Crisp and refreshing with plenty of fruitiness this saison would be perfect to quench your thirst when working outside on a hot summer day.

Beer Facts: Beer Styles

There is a very large variety of beer styles out there, most of which people who don’t know much about beer have rarely ever heard of. The popular ones that most do know are the light lager, the (dry) stout made popular by Guinness, the (Northern England) brown ale best known because of Newcastle Brown, and the IPA (India Pale Ale). According to RateBeer (a major beer review website) there are 104 beer styles and the main home brewing organization in the United States (the BJCP) recognizes more than 80. Some styles are seasonal such as pumpkin beers or Octoberfest beers, and many are regional, though nearly all started within one region or another. Almost all of the beer styles are fairly recent though, within the last few hundred years. The Finnish beer style of Sahti is one of the very few extremely old styles to make it to the modern day.

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