BrewBattle: Saison Edition
8Ah, France, home of pastries and turtlenecks. At some point a long time ago, in what i would guess to be a sort of smelly but beautiful country a long time ago, Saison was born. This farmhouse ale was made to be a lower alcohol content, as it was served on the job. French for 'season', a Saison is a pretty general category of beer that for the most part means, light, bubbly, sometimes fruity, sometimes sour, sometimes spicy.
So, it comes to this. Basic tenants of the contest:
- Make it a Saison (or, just make beer as @jont, @moose, @hollboll, @jasontoon, and @dave don't have BJCP certifications or anything. Shit, they almost thought Jager mixed with whiskey and a little bit of moxie was a tripel.
- All Grain, Extract, Partial Mash, BIAB, Dirty sock in a jailhouse toilet- it's all up to you. Just don't re-label a Dupont, you cheating cheater.
- Use a Saison-y yeast (I use 3711, but there are others)
- Keep it clean - sours just take too long. Also, I've never done a sour and I'm afraid.
- Use dunnage! Broken beer bottles during shipment are my own personal neurosis, (right @moose?).
- Try to get it done by July 1st. Ish. If that's not enough time, we'll push it.
- 17 comments, 75 replies
- Comment
I'm in! I will use regular bottles, not flip tops this time :) Might have to use Moxie as a secret ingredient though...
@bluebeatpete i should at that as one of the tenants. Must contain Moxie (either literal or spiritual)
@marklog that sounds delightful. challenge accepted.
@bluebeatpete The owner and sole operator who produces Fantome in Belgium has on occasion picked all of the dandelions from around the lot upon which he lives and has the barn in which he runs his small brewery (quite a few pounds of them) and used that in his famous Saisons before! He always adds something unusual to every batch. So, hey, go for it!
@mce128 I think my dandelion crop is done for the year, but I do have some wild passion flower growing...Might be a bit tastier than Moxie.
I'm in. I'll keep shit talking to a minimum if we can split the shipping.
Am I allowed to compete? I just moved off to secondary with my dunkelweizen so I have room in the pipe.
@NigelF of course! I don't believe for a second that your coworkers would give you preferential treatment, and even if they did IDGAF. You would, however, have to make a guest appearance on-camera. @grum, @bluebeatpete, @evbarnstormer, @kevin, what say you?
@marklog Bring it on! Rules are for squares.
@marklog @grum @bluebeatpete @evbarnstormer @kevin I'm sure that @jont, @hollboll, and @moose would most assuredly fail my submission if they knew it was me so I'm sure you guys are safe from bias.
@NigelF Wonderful! The more the merrier! Also the more people who join, the more drunk Mediocre employees will get on camera. We should probably do a barleywine at some point. ;)
So before someone steals my idea, not that it's worth stealing, but I'm making a fruitcake saison.
@NigelF I'm going for lemon pepper but i've never brewed one before...
@Kevin Neither have I :D S.G. 1.066, and we're off! I used WLP565 for my yeast (White Labs Saison Ale)
Well I decided to forego the fruit and bottle it now, I think it turned out quite well.
Saison? From France?!?!! Really? ... ... ... Reaaaaaally?
Bro, do you even beer?
- insulted Wallonne.
@goldenthorn Yeah yeah, it's Belgian. Sorry and shit. I find most Wallonnes to be insulting.
@goldenthorn also missing his BJCP certification is @marklog
@evbarnstormer how is your farmhouse coming along?
@marklog Um, great? Probably? If I get a trophy in two weeks I will have to figure out how to remake it by missing my water volume by half.
@marklog Nice.
@goldenthorn so this just happened:
@marklog: I wish I could say that was upper echelon trolling...but I was just an idiot
Me: Small town known for one thing, you made him sad.
Me: Oh that's a state the size of half the country, not a town, we're both idiots
Me: Ok it's also not a state but a region of 5 states. I quit. Saisons are French going forward.
@marklog Get off Wikipedia, you will lose
@evbarnstormer @jont, please enable multi-star feature for this thread.
Ok
I accept! I'll have to inject the saison into my current backlog, but that's all good!
I feel like the current brew champ should get a beer badge next to their name on the forums. Thoughts, @marklog? =P
@grum i would be in favor of this depending on the level of effort.
@jont None of this quick taste judge crap this time. Drink a good amount before judging!
@Kevin, @JonT: And don't use styrofoam. And rinse the glasses between beers. And rate mine higher.
@grum yeah, they totally could have already poured the samples in different cups, and not have the awkward close your eyes thing.
@Kevin The challenge with already poured samples is that depending on the beer, the head could be MIA. IDK about you, but to me that's an important aspect of judging a beer. That as well as color which is difficult to discern in opaque containers. It shouldn't be too difficult to setup flights of the beer to be tasted and have someone outside the room prepare them immediately before tasting.
@Kevin @grum @NigelF The issues are a) we didn't want to be able to tell which was which based on looking at it, b) @JonT only got 6 cups, and c) it gets really really hot in the streaming room, so pouring the beer ahead of time means it all gets warm.
@Moose @NigelF Just get some opaque steins and rinse them out between tastings. Have someone pour the beer in the hallway. Boom.
@Moose I recommend that each judge is given a flight of beers, and drinks it at their own pace. Then once all the judges are done, score the beer.
@Moose Go and have a look at the BJCP website and check out the guidelines for stewards. That'll give you good process for all that.
July 1st is easy! Saisons are not supposed to be off in secondary for long periods or anything. Hell, really, if you're doing it right, you might as well just skip the secondary and not even worry about waiting for all the yeast to floc out once it is done with the active ferment. As soon as the gravity slows way down, just bottle right then. It is a very "young" style in terms of the age of the end product as served.
Also, Pro-Tip: Don't use the yeast from the bottom of the bottle of a commercial Saison. Nearly all, if not all use a different yeast than the one used for the primary ferment along with the added sugar for the in-bottle carbonation.
@mce128 Except for the notable exception of Saison Dupont. A lot of recipes actually tell you to harvest the yeast from those bottles, and only use a homebrewer's yeast as a fallback. With the white labs yeast I'm using I could leave it in secondary all the way up to a week before (to leave time for bottle conditioning). Not that it's necessary in most cases, but I'm adding a bit of fruit at that stage so it needs time to dry.
@mce128 does this mean we have another competitor?
@NigelF I was just about to respond with the "Dupont" argument. Well done, sir.
Alright, my beer is fermenting.
8.5lb Pilsner malt
0.5lb Carahell
1lb Rye
Golding and Saaz hops
2 secret spices
Step infusion mash
O.G. 1.055
Forbidden Fruit yeast
@bluebeatpete
@bluebeatpete nice, mine is still going strong in primary after 7 days. I hope it slows down soon so I can get to the secondary and adding the fruit!
@hollboll i've heard rumors that the kid pukes all over the place right before the video cuts off.
@Kevin That's unfortunate.
Loved the last beer tasting on Lab Stream. Can't wait for the Saison Deathmatch. May I ask how many contestants there will be? And if guidelines have been established yet?
@mfladd guidelines are in the post above. do your reading like a good non gender specific human (and/or robot). Not sure about contestants. Confirmed (I think) are myself, @grum, @bluebeatpete, @kevin (?), @evbarnstormer, @nigelf. Shittalker but unconfirmed entrant is @mce128. Also, still waiting on a confirmation from @jont if this multimillion dollar startup can help with shipping, since we are, ya know, doing quite literally ALL OF THE WORK except drinking the beer.
@marklog I was being lazy and skimming. Just easier to ask. I am looking forward to it, and good luck to all of you.
@marklog Just need to get approval but I don't think it'll be an issue. We'll just send y'all out a label if/when we get approved.
@JonT
How's it going, brewers?! After a ridiculously long fermentation, I'm finally ready to keg/bottle. Might need to push this past 7/1.
@marklog Tags in case you aren't subbed. @grum, @bluebeatpete, @evbarnstormer, @nigelf, @kevin
@marklog I'll bottle carb this weekend
@marklog Sorry guys but i'm not participating in this one.
@Kevin lol great gif. Sorry, you told me that and I forgot.
@evbarnstormer @marklog me too. Hopefully it goes better than my dunkel which didn't really carb much at all :(
@marklog Going in a keg tonite. Need to build a counterpressure bottle filler, then I'm good to go.
@marklog Mines going to be quite late... I am brewing on Friday. I haven't had the time to brew for 2-3 weeks, due to work and other life stuff. If y'all don't want to wait for me, I can sit this one out, but I'm making it anyway and I have a feeling you'll all be fine waiting a little bit. ;)
@jont, any word on shipping labels? I'm ready.
Good news @marklog @grum @bluebeatpete @evbarnstormer, just got the approval to put the shipping on our dime!
I'll be reaching out to y'all later today to get some info and then we'll get those labels sent out.
@JonT wow, that's really nice of you guys
@JonT Oh sure, I don't get a shipping label. You act like I work here or something.
@JonT very cool! Which 'today' were you referring to?
@marklog now...Monday!
@JonT bump
@marklog I brought it up to him as well today so he's on it. People around the office have already been sampling my offering (not the judges tho) and the reviews are good.
Label received! Good thing I preemptively bottled some, because that keg drained faster than a recently draino-ed sink.
@jont and the saison battle is.... when?
@marklog I feel like I might be taking crazy pills but I checked the minifridge just yesterday and I don't think we ever got @grum's! We have @bluebeatpetes, @marklog, @evbarnstormers and @nigelf's can be delivered at any time.
If I'm wrong I can take another look, what say you @grum?
@JonT move on. He's long past the cutoff. DAMN YOU @GRUM!
@marklog Fair enough, no need to twist our arms to drink beer! We'll do our tasting and render judgment next week.
@JonT I am just making sure all these beers got some time to age!
For reals though it's sitting in my fridge. Work is super hectic since I'm taking a month vacation next Thursday, but I was planning on sending it before I left.
ooh wish I'd noticed this - is another one happening? I've got a stout in primary and an Ella IPA up next.
@becca I want to do an IPA contest, but since it's becoming clear that our current judges aren't terribly interested in free beer, I may go
rougerogue.@becca @abrakke and @evbarnstormer are very close to me. I think we could video/livestream the judging and put together a pretty amazing beer related prize...
@marklog @NigelF @JonT @marklog I think they should send me a shipping label so I can send something as a control or baseline... :) I have a few to chose from... ;) Sorry I put it under the wrong spot... If IPA is what you're looking at I can send a few control/baseline ipa's :)
@becca I just realized you said 'ella IPA'. I JUST made an Epiphany Clone that I kegged yesterday, the aroma blew my mind. I came in late boil with Ella and others, and dry hopped with Ella and others. hbt thread here:
@marklog nice hop profile! That sounds great. My best IPA was a very loose adaptation of a heady clone... I used massive late additions of Galaxy, Cascade, Simcoe, Apollo, Columbus, Amarillo. Expensive but amazing.
I'd be down for an IPA battle. I do have a few hop cones to throw into the batch (but hanging planters for hop bines is not the way to go).
@NigelF if space is an issue try tomato cage topiary style in a large planter. Just train them in a circle instead of up a string. I did that this year and it turned out ok!
@becca How was it compared to heady... did you use any heady harvested yeast?
@marklog you know you want to send me some right? ;)
@NigelF I don't Brew... but I occasionally get Heady/Lawson's. :)
@sohmageek Not sure how well it would match up, but I loved it. Used a West Coast yeast. Been a couple years since I've had HT, but we recently got a stir plate so that should help when we do.
@sohmageek I absolutely want to send you some. I'm nervous about it going flat, though. I'll work on it. Maybe if @grum lent me his beergun...
@becca @marklog @nigelf, @troy, and I all love IPAs so I'm sure we can put together a panel for it.
@marklog Beergun?
What will it be @JonT? Heady topper, Sip of sunshine, or Lawson's Session #2? or some other IPA I can come across?
@marklog I have a nice IPA I just finished about a month and a half ago ready to go. I'll just call it cloneslam and I'm sure you can figure out what I modeled it after. Also it's a healthy 10.2% so it'll get anyone drunk fast.
@zdunklee Sounds great!
@sohmageek Yea, I have yet to hear a bad review on it. It's certainly one I will revisit again at some point, was just expensive because of the honey and 12oz of hops it required to make. Like a third of that was a dry hop as well so it clocks in at like 70ibuish.
@marklog I'll do an IPA
@sohmageek a beergun is a tool to fill bottles out of a keg. it shoots co2 into the bottle first then fills from the bottom of the bottle on up, keeping o2 out and co2 in. it's a lovely device. @grum has one.
@marklog ooooh. I want this.
@becca http://www.homebrewing.org/product.asp?itemid=778&utm_source=google&utm_medium=shopping&gclid=CKaqrs_KgcgCFQ8lgQodjcYDHA
So sexy.
@JonT, @marklog, this is my official concession. I didn't get around to shipping it this week, and I will be out of the country until October 18th. I shall join the next one!
@grum Alrighty, we have all of the entrants then and we'll have to render our verdict next week!