The moral of this story, and I seem to be laying that down at the beginning of my blog posts lately, is that you have to know when to quit when you are ahead. That applies to many things in life, but even more so in brewing.

New Brew Thursday and Bison Brewing joined forces months ago to hold a homebrew competition. (Yes, this is a very old post that I’m just getting around to posting now. The bulk of this sending and brewing occurred between May and June of 2011.) Winning brewers from the first three rounds would go to a final round where they’d have to brew an original and all organic beer. Those final beers would be judged by Daniel Del Grande of Bison Brewing and Dr. Bill Sysak of NBT. The winning brewer from that final round would fly out to Berkeley, CA to make their beer on the Bison system, and it will also be entered into the medal competitions at the GABF, too.

Cut to the chase, I entered my Triple Lindy Belgian tripel, which the NBT guys seemed to like, in the first round and that got me into the final round. I had done one batch of organic beer before, the Haka American wheat beer, so I knew brewing organic was no different than what I was already doing. There are just less ingredients to choose from. Not as many crayons in the box, so to say.

I had been planning to do my yearly saison, since I always wait until the heat of the summer when it is easy to maintain those saison yeast fermentation temps, so that seemed like a good way to go for the competition. So, I placed my order with Seven Bridges Cooperative and got to work.

I followed an old recipe that I’ve used several times and been happy with over the years. The only omission was that of my usual few ounces of acidulated malt. I brewed the organic saison up without incident, pitched the yeast, and let the beer begin to ferment.

Then I got to thinking. Yeah, that’s dangerous in any situation, but especially here. I started thinking, “What’s the hook to my beer?” Bison Brewing does a wonderful Honey Basil ale and even a Gingerbread porter. What was special or unexpected about mine?

That’s when I decided to act upon an old idea to use blue agave nectar in a beer. A few of the styles out there are traditionally made with simple sugars. Usually this comes in the form of cane sugar, or candi sugar. The saison style often gets a pound of cane sugar to thin the beer’s body and to help dry out with a low final gravity. Blue agave nectar, a sugar-like sweetener and the base ingredient for tequila, fits that description perfectly.

So at the 48 mark of fermentation, I added 12 ounces of blue agave nectar. When adding the nectar, I noticed that it had a “heavier” aroma than I was expecting. More like a molasses than honey. I was surprised by that but, knowing that it was such a simple sugar, I figured there wouldn’t be much left once it fermented out.

It fermented out very dry and reached a final gravity of 1.001, just above the density of water. I started the fermentation at 76° and let it go (and helped it along with a heating pad) up to 85° degrees Fahrenheit. I’m a fan of trying to ferment beers cool and patiently, but my readings have lead me to agree with some experts who think that saison yeasts are direct descendents of red wine yeast and they like heat and abuse. I’ve probably made saisons as much as any style, and they love to stall and under-attenuate. If you’ve made a healthy yeast starter and added nutrients, then the key is heat and some gentle agitation.

It did not win the Bison-NBT competition, as that was won by Andrew Bell for his Zeal Island Pale Ale. Congrats to him as it sounds like he made a fantastic brew. And thank you to the Bison and the New Brew Thursday crews for putting on a great competition that challenges brewers and celebrates homebrewing. That was amazingly cool. 

How was the Blue Agave Organic Saison? It was good, but not amazing. Two things happened with this beer.

1)        In my meddling with the recipe late in the game and adding the agave nectar, I did add a lot of extra, highly-fermentable sugars. It had a thinning effect and some of the malt soul of the beer was lost.

2)       The saison showed signs of a brett infection about a month later. Now, as far as infections go, this one was a great one. Very similar to the house taste of a Jolly Pumpkin beer, but not what I intended and it caused the bottles to become super carbonated. Not to the point of bottle bombs but close. How did that happen? Either the late addition of the nectar post boil caused a problem (in theory, it shouldn’t have because it is hard for anything to live in a substance that high in sugar), or it picked up a Brett strain from my equipment. The latter is more likely.

All in all, a good beer, but nothing I planned. And, clearly, that was because there wasn’t a lot of thought going on about in this beer after I pitched the yeast. I second thought myself and got a little wild on the back-end. No pun intended.

And to be clear, I not saying that playing with beers after primary is a bad thing. I love splitting batches and adding fruit or oak, and seeing what comes of it all and comparing and contrasting the variants. But fundamental changes in sugar content can be problematic. Think about the beer you made and the effects of new ingredients. It can be wonderful, or it can leave you with something unbalanced.

Saison Tequilana - (Organic Saison) (5.5 gallons)

Starting Gravity: 1.055 (5/30/11)
Secondary Gravity: 1.006 (6/4/11)
Final Gravity:  1.001 (8/4/11) 66 Days
7.7% alcohol (by volume)
Apparent Attenuation: 98.2%
Real Attenuation: 80.4%

Mash (100 minutes ~145º)
13 lb Weyerman Organic Pilsner Malt
1 lb Weyerman Organic Wheat Malt
1 lb Briess Organic Munich Malt
1 lb Woodstock Farms Organic Pure Cane Sugar

Boil (90 min)
0.10 oz Organic Hallertauer Mittlefruh (4.7% AA) Pellet Hops (90 min)
1.50 oz Organic Hallertauer Mittlefruh (4.7% AA) Pellet Hops (60 min)
0.75 oz Organic Hallertauer Mittlefruh (4.7% AA) Pellet Hops (0 min)

1 tab Whirlfloc
¼ tsp Wyeast Yeast Nutrient

Primary (start 76º F-> 85º F)  
White Labs 565, 2 Vials, Starter was made
12 oz Wholesome Sweetners Organic Blue Agave (Agave nectar from Weber Azul) 6/2/11

This is another one in the strengthening pattern of my somewhat unhinged homebrew batches. After doing a lot of straightforward and style-centric beers over the last year or so, I’m back to doing absurd experiments. The brown ale with black rice is bottled, and I’m deconstructing a saison now.

Playing around with Carafa III in my black IPA (now called an “American-Style Black Ale” by the Brewer’s Association) and a few other brews was fun. So I decided to play with it again, but to make a black saison. Much about the saison has been written, and they are highly regarded by the beer geeks of the world.

My twist on the common saison recipe was to substitute some international ingredients. The German carafe III malts would blacken the beer. I used the Mexican piloncillo, or panela, instead of cane sugar. I added hibiscus flowers to enhance the herbal notes. I used African grains of paradise, this is not unusual for the style, to increase the pepper notes. And, finally, I used the Japanese hop Sorachi Ace as a late addition and dry-hop in the hopes of getting a light lemon note.

To complicate matters more, this was a split batch where one side would be racked onto white grapes during primary fermentation, and both carboys would get brettanomyces claussenii, a low intensity brett isolated from English stock ales, in secondary.

Yeah, this is a really fucking busy recipe and I’ll make no excuses for it. I had a certain idea in mind for it, that I’ll share in a later post, and hopefully this will make sense after it has time to evolve in the bottle.

I had intended to call this batch the “Ace of Spades”, but it appears that a brewery has already stolen that Motörhead reference. Bastards. (And was for a freaking double IPA, too.)

In the end, I went with something  unfunny and more literate. This batch is now “Black Orpheus”, and you can interpret that in any way that you desire. I’m unsure what the white grape variant will be called, if it gets a unique name at all. Maybe “Black Bacchus”

The brewday began with the mashing of the grains, and here are the acidulated and carafe III malts. My secret weapon in saisons has been about 4 ounces of acidulated malt to add a slight sour note to the finished beer.

Next came the piloncillo, hibiscus and grains of paradise.

The grains of paradise, or alligator pepper, were ground up and added at flame out.

Hibiscus was added at flame-out, as well. I’ve come to learn, later, that hibiscus can be a diuretic. So, if you get to try this beer, I apologize in advance for all the pissing and such.

The piloncillo is a bitch to work with. I loved the taste of the sugar but the little pylons were hard as rocks. My Hispanic friends told me, after the brewday, it is common for people to put the pylons into pitchers of water to let them soften over night. Good to know. Wish I knew earlier.

The mash was for 75 minutes and at 147° F, in order to make the wort as fermentable as possible.

With 10 minutes left in the boil and during dry-hopping, I used the lemony sorachi ace hops that were developed at the Sapporo brewery.

After the wort was cooled, the batch was split into two fermenters. Half received white grapes after the first 48 hours of fermentation. Both received a healthy pitch of brett c as they were moved to secondary.

We will see how this all turns out. I’m not worried that too many ingredients and changes will overwhelm the beer. In this scenario, it is much more likely that some of the ingredients will just become unnoticeable.

This one is bottled and awaiting the bubbles of carbonation. I hope it doesn’t play hard to get.

The recipe:

Black Orpheus – (Black Saison) (8 gallons)

Starting Gravity: 1.061 (11/21/10)
Secondary Gravity: 1.012 (12/5/11)
Final Gravity:  1.006 (1/13/11)
7.3% alcohol (by volume)
Apparent Attenuation: 89.7%
Real Attenuation: 73.5%

Mash (75 minutes ~147º)

13 lb Belgian Pilsner
1.0  lb Munich Malt
1.0  lb Wheat Malt
0.50 lb Carafa III
0.25 lb Acidulated Malt
2 lb Piloncillo Sugar (4 pylons)

Boil (60 min)

0.25 oz Goldings (5.7% AA) Leaf Hops (90 min)
1.75 oz Goldings (5.7% AA) Leaf Hops (60 min)
1.0 oz Sorachi Ace (10.1% AA) Leaf Hops (10 min)

¼ teaspoon Grains of Paradise (0 min)
1 oz Hibiscus Flowers (Dried) (0 min)

Primary (80º F)

White Labs 565, 2 Vials, Starter was made

Secondary (72º F)

Brett C was pitched on both on secondary

1.0 oz Sorachi Ace (10.1% AA) Leaf Hops (Dry Hop) (0.5 oz per carboy)

This one is a Belgian Pale Ale.  These are light session beers that are perfect for the absurd summer weather we’ve been having here in Virginia.  I think when most people think of Belgian beers, their first thought is of big, heavy and complex dubbels, tripels, Belgian strong ales and quads. Those are great styles, but they are a little challenging when you just want to turn off and chill out.

The Belgian pale ale is something easy and refreshing that you would enjoy drinking while sitting outside at a café in Brussels. I’ve done just that and it is amazing.

I went a little experimental with this one in that I used the limited edition Wyeast Leuven yeast. (Rumor has it that this is the yeast used by Corsendonk.) It is a little outside the norm, but it seemed like an interesting choice.

I liked how this brewed turned out overall. It is orange with some straw highlights. There are some malt notes, but the clearer taste characters show up as pear and some peppery spice.

If I would change anything about this brew, I’d ferment it a little warmer. I keep this one cooler than a normal ale (~66°F) to keep it balanced, but I’d like to see what letting this one go hot and wild would do. Belgian strains thrive on conditions that stall most yeast strains. Doing so would have made this one a little less…subtle.

I named it “They’re Filming Midgets!” To fully understand that line, your homework would be to check out the infinitely quotable In Bruges movie.

If you are interested, the recipe is below. Why was half of my base malt Canadian pilsner? No good reason, really.  I had won 5 lbs of it from the Devil’s Backbone in a homebrew competition and thought I’d throw that it in there in place of some of the Belgian Pils.

They’re Filming Midgets! - (Belgian Pale Ale)

Starting Gravity: 1.054 (7/5/10)

Final Gravity:  1.014 (8/2/10) Days    

5.3% alcohol (by volume)

Apparent Attenuation: 73.2%    

Real Attenuation: 60.0%

Mash (65 minutes ~153°)

5 lb Canadian Pils

5 lb Belgian Pils

0.75 lb Caramunich

0.50 lb Belgian Biscuit

Boil (90 min)

1.3 oz/39 grams East Kent Goldings (5.9% AA) Pellet Hops (60 min)                

0.3 oz/10 grams East Kent Goldings (5.9% AA) Pellet Hops (0 min)                

Primary (66º F)  

Wyeast 3538 Leuven Pale Ale (Starter Made 7/3/10)

Back in August of 2009, I took a fully fermented homebrewed saison batch of mine and split it into two 3-gallon carboys. On one I put a vial of Brett B, and on the other I pitched the dregs of an Avery Brabant. The initial post about the sour saison experiment is here.

I haven’t post anything about the tasting of these two batches simply because I haven’t bottled them yet.  (Despite the fact the Brabant version has won a silver medal in a BJCP competition. Ahhh, the joys of wine thieving….)  I will be bottling that soon, hopefully this week.

But the clear winner was the Brabant version.  It was more tart, sour and refreshing.  (More to come later) But this wasn’t a really fair race.  The Brett B version was purely a brettanomyces addition, and the dregs of the Brabant included brettanomyces, lactobacillus, pediococcus and whatever else was cultured up from the bottle.

So, never leaving well enough alone, I decided to play with the Brett B saison before bottling. I’m not a huge fan of the Americanization of Belgian and French beers, but I have had a few interesting ones of late.  I really liked the aroma hop kick of the Flying Dog Raging Bitch Belgian IPA, and seemed like it would be fun to try dry-hopping my saison with American hops.

Without look it up, it was clear to me that the dry hop aroma from the FDRB was Amarillo hops. So took 1 oz of some Amarillo hops and dropped them into carboy, which holds about 2 gallons of sour saison at this point. The look of it is disturbing.

Through the neck of the carboy

Amarillo hops and the remaining bits of pellicle.

The mixture of green Amarillo pellet hops and the remaining bits of pellicle is glorious.  But, unfortunately, it was difficult to photograph. If you aren’t familiar with what these sour beers look like, I think it might be unsettling. Honestly, it looks like some sort of tomatillo salsa verde thing.

But I am loving the look of this, and the smell is already amazing.

I’ll leave the hops on the saison for about a week, then I’ll bottle them up.

I took an accidental hiatus from the blog for a while.  Yeah, I fell off the blogging horse, so I’m dusting myself off and getting back on track.

I’m still moving forward with split batches, and I’m still trying to squeeze as much learning as I can out of these brews.

Sour Saison

My sour saison split is still getting funky. That was the one that I split a saison into two 3 gallon carboys, and I pitched brettanomyces B on one, and the cultured up dregs of an Avery Brabant on the other. They are still aging and they have both dropped ~0.001 in the gravity department.  The biggest difference between the two, from my infrequent visits to them, is that the Brabant is showing the signs of having some pediococcus and lactobacillus.  Neither are particularly enjoyable to taste, but these things take time to clean up. Before it is all over, I’m sure I’ll be adding the last bits of some sour commercial beers in the brett-only saison to fill out the flavors and complexities of the beer.

I might be bottling these beers in the near future. Although they have only been souring for about 3 months, I was aiming for more of “at bottling time” addition of brett than the long souring and aging variety.

Robust Porter

The robust porter split is done and bottled, and I’ll be comparing the robust porter fermented with Safale US-05 against the same wort fermented with the Safale-04 in a future blog post. I’ve tried them side-by-side once and there were slight, but obvious, differences. I’m not sure what I was expecting to find with this split, and I think I’m still better off not having expectations until after the last taste.

Belgian Dark Strong Ale

The next split was my Belgian Dark Strong Ale which is going three ways. Six gallons of the BDSA went down in a typical fashion with lots of grain, some simple sugars delivered through cane and candi syrups, and that was all fermented down with a gallon starter of the White Labs WLP530 Abbey ale yeast.  This was a relatively small BDSA, and it weighed in only (merely!) at an 1.081 OG. After that fermented down, I bottled about a gallon of that beer and then pitched the Wyeast brettanomyces lambicus on the rest, along with pinot noir & French oak. 

The third part of this brew was a gallon that BDSA wort that was fermented with Safale US-05 yeast (a clean, American strain).  What exactly is the style of a beer that has the malt and sugar bill of a Belgian Dark Strong ale, but is done with a California yeast?  A dry and malty Old Ale? I don’t know.  We shall see.

Mild

The latest split brew is a Mild, and I will probably bottle that this week.  This is a low-alcohol session ale that weighed in at 1.038 OG, and it  finished at 1.009 (and rockin’ 3.8% ABV).  I’m really happy with how this one tastes so far. It is as close to a worty, grain flavor as I’ve ever gotten out of one of my homebrews without being cloyingly sweet, as well.  The other part of the split was the same exact beer and yeast (Danstar Nottingham), but I threw in some French oak when I pitched the yeast on the second portion of the mild. I’m only leaving the wooded mild on those oak cubes for two weeks, and I will be bottling that one, too, this week.

Sour Cider

The last atypical brew that I have in motion isn’t a beer at all. It is a cider. Now, I made a cider a month or so ago under the tutelage of a fellow homebrew club member who is the cider master.  That turned out great, but I am making another batch of cider with the questionable idea of fermenting it with the Wyeast 3278 Lambic Blend. I had a plan to go brett-only, but it takes time for the brett to take off and this is fresh juice (off the tree, into the press, and into the carboy) with lots of wild and unpredictable yeast on the skins and in the press.  This mixture of two brettanomyces, a Belgian wheat, and a sherry yeast strain, as well as a lactic acid bacteria, will hopefully beat out the unknown critters.  I picked up the fresh juice last night (which was 50% Staymens, and 50% Pink Ladys) and I added the sodium metabusulfite to hold the natural yeasts at bay for a time.

A friend, in a moment of genius, has called this… thing “Lambicide”.  I don’t know how that name CAN’T stick.

The Battle of the Bocks

A few weeks from now, I have an epic brew day scheduled. My friend Greg and I are planning to do two 12 gallons batches at the same time. One will be a Doppelbock, the other an Eisbock.  At the end of the day, we should both go home with 6 gallons of each beer. No experiments or splits are planning for this. That 24 gallons should be enough.

Details of the above beers and ciders will follow….

**2/22/11 Update** 

I sent the Brett B version of the saison (renamed Monsoon Season) to the Batch 300 competition put on by The Bruery. It didn’t get Best of Show, but it did come in first in Category 16. All and all, very cool. The results. 

The second split batch experiment happened on Sunday night with my latest saison. 

I’ve done a few saison homebrews, and I always find I enjoy the bretted and soured batches just a little bit more. Saisons are not complete strangers to wildness and sourness, and some of the more famous examples of the style from Brasserie Fantôme and Brasserie à Vapeur  are amazing because of those notes.  I think it adds more complexity to the beer, and I find myself ramping up the acidulated malt that I put into the mash a little more each time.  The idea behind this experiment was to ferment a saison and then to add a pure brettanomyces culture to one and brett and some souring bacteria into the other. 

The beer started out as one of my standard saison batches with the not-so-secret ingredient of some acidulated malt.  It started out with an OG of 1.068, and I fermented it at around 80 degrees.  It dropped down to a 1.006 less than a week later, and then I let it sit for another week just to clean itself up and let the yeasts drop out.  (I say “yeasts” because I pitch a saison yeast, in this case WLP565, and then a clean Cal ale yeast, the Safale US-05, 48 hours later to insure the beer dries out enough.) 

On Sunday (8/23/09), I split the batch evenly between two 3-gallon carboys.  Into one carboy I pitched a vial of White Labs Brettanomyces Bruxellensis (WLP650), and into the other I pitched a starter I had ramped up from the dregs of an Avery Brabant.  (Yes, this is deviation from the original souring gameplan.) 

The Brett B is a pure culture of that brettanomyces strain and it is often used for secondary fermentation of Belgian beers and lambics.  It creates a medium intensity funk, and it is some pitched at bottling by brewers.  The Avery culture is a bit more of a wildcard.  It is my understanding that the Brabant undergoes a secondary fermentation brett b, too, but it isn’t the same culture as the tube.  The bottle dregs likely include lactobacillus (lacto) and pediococcus (pedio) bacteria. These can add extra tartness and perhaps add a vinegar quality to the beer. 

Since the final gravity of the beer was so low, the bretts shouldn’t have too much to feast upon and that should control the funkiness to a certain degree.  As of two nights later, the brett b carboy doesn’t appear to be doing anything visually, but its airlock seems to be under a bit more pressure.  The Brabant carboy is getting a white foaminess to it, and may be forming a pellicle.  

I’m not sure how long I will let these beers age and evolve.  I will likely taste them every so often and see if they are in a place where I want to bottle them.  

We’ll see where this one ends up.  

As a sidenote, I did use my wine thief a few weeks ago to fill up a few bottles of the pre-brett saison for tasting and a homebrew competition.  I tasted one right before the split and it was very, very good.  It made it harder to pitch uncertainty into what was an amazing beer, but at least I know I have the recipe I want dialed in for the future. 

The recipe for giggles: 

Le Moribond – (Saison) 2009

Starting Gravity: 1.068 (8/2/09) Days @ 80° F
Final Gravity:  1.006 (8/23/09)
8.15% alcohol (by volume)
Apparent Attenuation: 90.71
Real Attenuation: 73.35

Mash (147° 60 min)
10 lb Pilsener Malt
2 lb Golden Promise
1 lb Munich Malt
0.75 Wheat Malt
0.25 CaraMunich 40
0.25 Acidulated Malt (Sauer)
1 lb Cane Sugar

Boil (70 minute boil)
2.0 Hallertauer Leaves (4.3 AA) (60 min)
0.75 Hallertauer Leaves (4.3 AA) (0 min)
1 tablet Whirlfloc (Boil – 15 min.)
½ tsp Brewer’s Choice Wyeast Nutrient Blend (Boil – 10 min.)

Primary (>80° F)

White Labs WLP565 – Starter made
Safale-05 – Packet pitched after 48 hours in primary

This update is more thinking (or is it typing?) out loud about split batches.  In an effort to get a lot of brewing experimentation and testing done in a short amount of time, I’m splitting batches and that began not long ago with the splitting of my barleywine.  Part of that beer was bottled according to plan and a portion of the barleywine is being aged a little longer on bourbon oak cubes.

Right now, I have a traditional saison in primary and I’m determining how I want to break that one apart.  I’ll post the recipe for it on a later update, but it is your garden-variety saison homebrew from the 10,000 foot view.  Lots of pilsner malt, some wheat, a pound of cane sugar (to dry it out) and a few other specialty grains.  I also threw in 2 pounds Golden Promise just to add a little malt weight to the mix. 

The secret ingredient for my saisons is a touch of acidulated malt.  The acidity of that specialty grain adds a subtle complexity in the finished beer, but sticking your nose in a bag of this malt is like inhaling fresh sourdough.  At first I only used 2 ounces per 5.5 gallon batch, but lately I’ve been using 4 ounces.  I might have gone a little higher with this brew, but part of the experiment is the souring of the saison with brett, and I didn’t want too much noise coming from the sour malt.

I brewed up a 5.5 gallon batch on Sunday (8/2/09), and it has been in primary for four days.  The original gravity was 1.068, I pitched a built-up starter of WLP565 into the carboy once it got down to 75° F, and then I pitched a package of Safale-05 after the first 48 hours of active fermentation.   Saison yeasts are notorious for pooping out too early, and I have been burnt before, so I usually pitch something strong and neutral to bat clean up for the saison yeast if it decides to die on me.

At this time, I’m looking to split the batch three ways:

• Segment A (Control): 1 gallon will be bottled and carbonated in the usual way for the style
• Segment B: 3 gallons will be racked in a smaller carboy and I will pitch brettanomyces bruxellensis (medium intensity brett – WLP650) on that and let it sour
• Segment C: 1 gallon will be racked it a wine jug and I will pitch the dregs of a bottle of Jolly Pumpkin La Roja (American-made Flanders Red) on that

I’ve tried the Bruery’s Saison Rue a few times over the last few months, and I like that beer a lot.  It is unusual because of their use of rye malt in the brew, but they also add brettanomyces at bottling to sour it ever so slightly.  It is a solid and very balanced beer, but I wanted a little more sourness in my version.  For that reason, I want to give segment B a little extra time before bottling for the brett to do its thing.

Segment C is just a spur of the moment decision since a good friend brought down some Jolly Pumpkin beers, and I’ve been loving then so far.  Building up and pitching those dregs should add JP’s brett, pedio, and lacto cultures to the saison, and I’m most excited to see how that segment turns out.

Down the road, I’ll be looking to use the 10 pounds of cherries I acquired a few weeks ago, but I think those are better used on a Belgian dark strong or golden ale.

Stay tuned, and any thoughts or comments are welcomed.

Ommegang, located in Cooperstown, NY, is a brewery that focuses on Belgian-style ales.  They make a very nice saison (Hennepin), a Belgian dark ale (Rare Vos) and a number of other interesting ales (like the Three Philosophers which is Belgian Quad mixed with Kriek Lambic).  

When I heard about their bière de garde beer that is funkified with brettanomyces, well, I had to check it out.  A bière de garde seems like the perfect base for this sort of souring since the style lays out a nice malt base but has a good bit of sweetness that the wild yeast can slowly eat through.

My bottle was the traditional heavy Ommegang bomber that was caged and corked.  This one was from Batch #2, bottled in October of 2008 and is 6.5% ABV.  The label calls it a “Belgian amber with magical space dust woven in.”  The strain of wild yeast is brettanomyces bruxellensis.
 

This one pours into a goblet a deep, apple juice red.  There is a lot of yeast in this one.  Huge chunks swirl around the glass and stay in suspension for the entire time I drink it.  I’m guessing the space dust turned into a tiny asteroid field.  Being a homebrewer, the chunks don’t bother me, but I am curious about why there is that much sediment.  The head is big and rocky, and it stays around like it is in a contest with the yeast to see who will flinch first. 

The aroma is sour with a relatively light amount of funk.  There is a tiny bit of dry hop spice and lemon, and they peek in from the corners of the barnyard smells.

The taste is acid on the tongue.  The finish is dry, like a saison, with a hint of mint.  The thing that comes to mind the most about this beer is its balance.  There is firm malt and the sourness which is refreshing without becoming that repetitive and pounding one note that a sour ale can become.  

The question I have coming out of this tasting, is should this be cellared?  I suppose it depends upon what you want out of the Bière de Mars.  If you like a pronounced but not overwhelming sourness and slightly sweet balance, find a bottle of this and drink it now.  If you are a sourhead, I’d suggest cellaring this one for a year or so to see how it matures.  This is a heavy-duty corked bottle with tons of living, wild yeast that can keep this beer evolving for quite some time. 

Definitely try this one out.  It is young, but it will grow.

Occasionally, I’ll try to throw out a review of a beer I’ve had on draft, or while out and about. Sure, I’m a dork and take notes while I’m trying a beer, but it is harder to do so if you are out with the family or a couple of sheets into a long night. These will be quick reviews.

I found this one on draft at Timberwood last weekend. I was sitting down to an enchilada plate and had prepared to order an IPA to go with it, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to try this one despite the fact that a saison was not all that complimentary to the meal.

The New Holland Golden Cap Saison poured a golden amber with a medium white head. The aroma was made up of soft notes of coriander and spice. The first sip was lemon and more coriander with a touch of honey. The body was on the thin side, but that is to style and it made this one even more drinkable. The dry finish left me wanting more.

A very nice sessionable saison. Well, a much as you can session a 7% beer. This is just as nice a summer sipper as Bell’s Oberon. That is very high, although calendar specific, praise.

I’m impressed, and I’m psyched to get my saison brewing later this spring.