AG31 - Summer Saison

[serum]

It's getting warm now so it's saison time!

Recipe:

4.5kg Dingemans Pilsner
500g Dingemans Wheat Malt
200g Caramunich
200g Flaked Oats

50g East Kent Goldings pellets @ 60 mins
340g Acacia Honey @ 10 mins
0.5g Grains of Paradise @ 5 mins
50g East Kent Goldings leaf @ 0 mins

Yeast - WLP550

Estimated OG - 1.057
Actual OG - 1.055
IBU - 40

This is loosely based on a popular recipe from HBT that I've done a few times but I've subbed French Saison for WLP550 which is the yeast from La Chouffe. It's still dry but not as much as French Saison and a lot more fruity. I like it a lot more so thought I'd try it out.

I've upped the bitterness a bit to 40 IBU to match Westvleteren and Bink Blond. They're both similar to saisons and awesome beers so it can't hurt!

The brew largely went well. I mashed at 66C and boiled a litre of wort down while sparging as this has worked really nicely in the last four brews to get a little more malt complexity in there.

When mashing I overdid it a bit with the acid and ended up with pH 5.2. It's the first time I've done that so not sure what it'll mean but I didn't bother acidifying my sparge water after in an effort to compensate so hopefully that'll sort things out. I forgot to measure pH after the boil and have done that every single brew so wouldn't have had anything to compare it to anyhow. I hit my pre boil gravity and the wort tasted alright so can't have been that bad.

I usually find bru-n-water ends up above target rather than below but then again this is the lightest coloured grain bill I've done since I started testing. I'll do a similar brew next time and see how I get on.

I also nearly forgot to put my aroma hops in! I only noticed just as I started the wort chiller.

Here are a few pics:



















Next up will be a spiced saison with the same yeast.

[Clibit]

Looks lovely. What makes it a saison, if you're not using a saison yeast? I know it's a difficult to define style.

[serum]

For me it needs a dry finish and to be relatively hop forward for a Belgian beer but there can be a few other things like use of cereal grains or certain spices to give a rustic touch.

WLP550 is recommended for saisons even though it doesn't have saison in the name so that's probably confused things. It's a really nice yeast so worth a go.

Saison is another style that's been taken in a completely different direction by "craft brewers" in much the same way IPA has so if you try a more modern example it probably won't be much like what a Belgian one tastes like. Belgian ones are quite understated really but I like them.

[Clibit]

Cheers serum. I feel that saison is not really a style, and this seems to back it up...

"Historically, saisons did not share enough identifiable characteristics to pin them down as a specific style, but rather were a group of refreshing summer ales made by farmers. Each farm brewer would make his own distinctive version. Although most commercial examples now range from 5 to 8% abv, originally saisons were meant to be refreshing and it is thought they had alcohol levels ranging from 3 to 3.5%."

But it's found its way into the style guidelines, with various parameters, like 5-8% ABV.

[Hanglow]

When I taste a saison I always compare it to saison dupont, and if it's in the spirit of that then I recon its a saison. That's my style guidline

I'd like to see more cask saisons, i recon they'd be a great alternative to golden ales for refreshment as long as there's enough bitterness to counter the relative lack of carbonation and on the lower abv end


What do you think the FG would end up at with that yeast? I really like the pepperyness I get from WLP530 and often thought that would be a good saison yeast, although I think I'd have to add a lot of sugar to get it dry enough. Also the wit strains might make a good one too

[serum]

Westvletern Blond uses 530 and the Bink yeast is also very close so I think you'd be able to use that. A saison doesn't have to be absolutely bone dry. I think you could get to 1.006 or so with it if you mash low and use a reasonable amount of sugar.

If you try find a clone for Westvleteren Blond which will use WLP530 then do that, you won't be disappointed. As I recall it's just Belgian Pale or a combination of that and pilsner and three hops.

[Clibit]

We get saisons on keg in my neighbourhood, but not on cask. But I can see cask working, maybe around 4% ABV. It's just how to determine what a saison actually is. I would say it's a low strength beer with yeast that is spicy/funky/sour. Maybe.

[Jocky]

We get saisons on keg in my neighbourhood, but not on cask. But I can see cask working, maybe around 4% ABV. It's just how to determine what a saison actually is. I would say it's a low strength beer with yeast that is spicy/funky/sour. Maybe.

I would say that a saison is a beer that uses saison yeast, and everything else is largely up to personal preference.

Personally I like mine well carbonated, so I'd not be a fan of a cask saison.

[Clibit]

But what is a saison yeast? One that's called a saison yeast by yeast manufacturers?

[serum]

But what is a saison yeast? One that's called a saison yeast by yeast manufacturers?

Yep pretty much

[Clibit]

I don't think so! And, if it was, you're not making a saison.

I think this article is on the right lines, especially the last section about yeast ...

https://beerandbrewing.com/VMvilisAAKGj ... g-it-wrong

"So, using a “Belgian” yeast strain will not make your beer Belgian. Only one thing will make your beer Belgian: brewing it on Belgian soil. Meanwhile there are lots of things that can make your beer “Belgian-style” besides the yeast—see the points above.

I will take this further: You do not need “saison” yeast to make saison. Saison is a tradition on the one hand and a marketing scheme on the other—and there is nothing wrong with either. Saison is not a microorganism. Its DNA is cultural, not chemical. As Senne brewer (and noted saison history buff) Yvan De Baets recently told a gathering at the Craft Brewers Conference in Denver: “Farmers in the middle of the countryside didn’t order their saison yeast from Wyeast.”

[serum]

I'd recommend reading Farmhouse ales.

The truth is nobody really knows what the original saisons were like. I suppose what I know is based on what modern Belgian brewers have decided it tasted like but they might be wrong too.

I've seen new breweries making grisette which is like an even more obscure type of saison that's not made anymore and I can see that becoming big. That sort of thing must be like gold dust for marketing people because you have a story behind your beer and its unlikely anyone can say whether you're being true to it or not.

[Jocky]

I don't really disagree with those points, saison appears to be as much a 'state of mind' as anything else, but when trying to nail it down in the modern style lexicon, there seems to only be two ways to define what a saison is:

It uses a 'saison' type yeast

It's called a 'saison'.

[Clibit]

It was something people did, brew beer for a reason, rather than a type of beer. So there isn't a style. Except modern brewers have created a style. New styles are fine obviously, it's just not representative of the thing that inspired it. Very different.

[serum]

That's Belgian and French brewing for you and that's what I love about it. There's quite a lot of freedom to do what you want.

Biere de garde is even more broad as it can encompass a whole load of different colours and flavours.