Saison Tasting

Over a month after bottling and 2 months after first brewing I'm finally getting around to doing a tasting of my Saison.

Appearance: Not surprisingly similar to the pumpkin spice ale with their similar malt bills with a light brown/amber with some orange notes on the sides.  A 1/2 inch off white head appears initially but fades very quickly (wasn't the cleanest glass).

Smell: Wow that is enjoyable. A nice citrusy blend that feels like part hops, part yeast character and part orange peel inspired with a lot of depth and complexity.  Its followed by caramelly sweetness.

Taste:  Just like the nose but with more complexity.  Not overly strong in any direction but the hops are the star up front with a fair amount of sweetness and hints of Belgian spicy character.

Mouthfeel: Lots of carbonation and fairly thin in body this one is an easy drinker but the carbonation is a bit higher than I intended with TONS of bubbles flowing up from the bottom consistently.

Drinkability: Fairly enjoyable I could have a few more gladly.  The hop level of this beer and the subdued yeast character for the style (probably due to low fermentation temps) make this a bit more like an american pale or amber than the classic saison (the lack of attenuation to dry out the beer doesn't help either) but this is still a tasty beer with a moderate orangey character.

Amber Saison Brewday

On Friday I spontaneously decided to use my saison ingredients and go for it.  I had been planning on making a saison since I began brewing and had been slowly working on a recipe the entire time.  The bill for the 5 gallon batch is listed below:

6 lb Northern Brewer Amber LME
1.5 lb Briess Wheat DME
7 oz. Turbinado Sugar
8 oz. Caravienne
1 oz. Glacier (60 minutes)
.25 oz. Citra (40 minutes)
.25 oz. Citra (20 minutes)
.25 oz. Citra (10 minutes)
.25 oz. Citra (flameout)
.5 tsp irish moss (15 minutes)
.25 oz. Bitter Orange Peel (15 minutes)
.25 oz. Sweet Orange Peel (15 minutes)
Wyeast 3711 yeast (French Saison)

I have more than a few worries about this one: the orange peel floated and, because I didn't think to strain it, much of it ended up transferring to the fermenter.  Also the 1 oz. of citra hops looks like a small amount in hindsight when split as much as it was, depending on taste I may choose to use twice as much, with most coming at flameout, next time.  Due to lack of heating control the beer is also fermenting away at temperatures much lower than are typical of a saison, probably closer to 60 than the 70 or 80 typical of the style.  Lastly I have not had an amber saison and I fear that the sweet/malty character could overpower the yeast, hop, and orange flavors.  All of these might be unfounded since I haven't tasted the beer yet.  Of course forgetting to take the OG was a beginner mistake I regret but I assume it to be right around 1.062.

I'm really excited for this beer but also more nervous than with my others because I have higher expectations and seemingly more room for errors.  If it does not live up to my expectations when I taste it in a few days and do a gravity reading I may have to dry hop and/or crank up the temperature with a space heater in order to get the flavor profile I intended.  Either way I will brew a similar beer to this again with some modifications. I also plan on farming the yeast and doing a big biere de garde.

I should have up a tasting athe pumpkin ale soon as well as the beer of the month club beers, and eventually this saison.

Upcoming Beers

So I told myself over and over I would not post a recipe to this blog until it was 100% set and I had either brewed it or was just about to. Well this seems close enough so here it goes.
I recently ordered the ingredients for two batches of beer I plan on making and will brew one this weekend (or during the week depending on when it shows up) and the other sometime in the next month:

1. Saison Nouvelle: This is intended to be an amber colored Saison style beer with light orange flavor from orange peel additions, lemony and tropical fruit flavor from citra hops and spicy character  from the hops.
2. Pumpkin Beer: Like the saison this recipe also uses 6 lbs of amber lme, 1.5 lbs wheat dme and .5 lbs caravienne but will utilize much lower amount of hops (1 oz. Mt. Hood for 60 minutes) and a fairly neutral yeast character (Nottingham). The main flavors here come from the 2 lbs of roasted canned pumpkin and pumpkin spices (1 tsp pumpkin pie spice + .5 tsp cinnamon + 1 tsp nutmeg).  Half of the batch will have cold brewed pumpkin spice coffee added at bottling time to make a Coffee Pumpkin Ale which, as far as I can tell from my web searches, has not been done before? Doesn't seem possible with the wildly imaginative brewers out there but maybe theres a good reason for it, we shall see.

I'm not sure what order these will be brewed in...the Saison Nouvelle will likely require greater time in carboy (~1 month) and higher temps (>70) which would seemingly make it more fit to be done second.  It however is a recipe I REALLY want to do so we'll see on brewday which I decide to go with.