What is a Grisette?

A miner steps out of the coal mine and up to the bar. What does he order? A beer? No, a grisette. Wait, what’s a grisette? We’ve got the answer.

By: Living a Stout Life

Gimme a grisette! Long gone are the days of sidling up to a bar and asking for a beer. With hundreds of types of beer on the market today, asking for just a beer will only result in a questioning glance.

However, the same might still hold true if you sidled up to a bar and asked for a grisette. You may still be greeted with that questioning glance. So, what exactly is a grisette?

What is a Grisette?

When it comes to ordering beer at a craft brewery, beer drinkers generally have an idea of what they want to drink. Whether that is an IPA, an amber, a brown, a pilsner, etc. But what about those not so common beers? Beers such as a rauchbier, Berliner Weisse, or even a saison?

Okay, maybe you’ve heard of those. But have you heard of a grisette? No? You’re not alone. That’s probably because there’s not a lot of recorded history on this ancient style of beer originating from southern Belgium.

The simplest way to define a grisette is to say that it’s a member of the saison family. Sort of. To clarify, the saison style was first brewed for farm hands in the 18th century. It was a light, refreshing, and thirst-quenching liquid, oftentimes better for you than water.

As technology progressed through the years and farming began to transition more into industrial practices, such as mining, the beer changed with it. Well known in the Hainaut province in southern Belgium, the grisette served as a thirst quencher for the coal miners coming out of the mines after a hard day’s work.

Why is it Called a Grisette?

Now that you know a grisette was brewed for the miners, you might be curious as to where the name came from. While there is no one certainty around the name’s origin, there are several assumptions.

Gris means gray in French. And because of the long boiling time and wheat in the grain bill, grisettes were often gray-ish in color, resulting in the style possibly being named after its color.

Another possibility for its name comes from the women who would serve the miners their long-awaited beers. Not because they were gray, but because their dresses were.

But maybe the most meaningful naming of the grisette can be attributed to the actual stones that were being mined. While the women weren’t gray, the men emerging from the depths of those stone quarries were – covered in the results of their work.

Regardless of why the grisette was named as it was, the beer style has reemerged from the depths – so to say – of history. And surprisingly enough, it’s the U.S. brewers that are playing a large role in this reemergence of an ancient beer.

Grisettes are Meant to be Refreshing

Staying true to tradition, modern grisettes are rarely funky and are easy-drinking, light-bodied beers meant to be refreshing. That’s not to say that grisettes of today are never funky.

Brewers are always pushing the boundaries with beer styles, and grisettes are no different. In fact, it’s quite easy to play with the flavor profiles of a traditional grisette, as they are often fermented with bacteria along with the yeast, which is commonly a saison yeast.

And while traditional grisettes were brewed with unmalted wheat; today, it’s the malted wheats that play a large role in the flavor profile. This quite possibly gives what could be a bland drink added body and texture. As for the hops, grisettes have a hop forward profile giving it a floral complexity without the bittering of what we would expect, say, in modern day IPAs.

Today, whether you’re brewing up a traditional or modern style grisette, they generally have a three to five percent ABV ranking. They are also usually golden or straw in color with a slight peppery taste similar to saisons.

But the common thread within all grisettes is the mere fact that they are meant to be highly drinkable, full of flavor, and immensely refreshing.

Most of us are no longer working in the mines, but we all work hard. Gimme a grisette! Or two…

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