Maisonette (Mosaic Table Saison)

I rarely brew extract batches since moving to all grain.  While I feel that good beers can be made with extract, it is hard to get a world class beer and impossible to nail some styles. I  do always try to have extract on hand for making starters or filling in the gravity gaps in beers and  Maisonette started as a yeast starter, specifically a way to step up growler dregs from a Tired Hands Beautiful Luminescent Crystal. Props to Scott Janish and Sean Gugger for giving me the idea to step up their dregs from the growler. Beautiful Luminescent Crystal was a sort of moderately strong wheat saison that used the same base yeast blend of their also delicious and more famous flagship SaisonHands.

The yeast (or yeast blend) is suspected to be the Brasserrie de Blaugies saison strain (possibly with additional yeast or bacteria included) and produces a great fruity, slightly tart, and slightly funky character.  These characters seem like they could pair with a wide range of characteristics: classic grainy saisons, spiced/fruited/sour varieties, and especially fruity/tropical American hops.  After stepping the yeast up 2 times to get a 2 quart starter I found myself ready to brew but with only a few hours available and no chance to head to the homebrew store: time to make due with what I have on hand.

I still had some vacuum sealed Mosaic hops in my freezer from my very tasty Belgian session IPA and had been wanting to brew with them again.  With just a small amount of pils and wheat dry extracts on hand I decided that I would make a small 3 gallon batch (with an extra .5 gallons leftover for a different yeast).  This batch was intended to be a bit of a grisette, with lower gravity than a standard saison and 20% wheat and was also intended to highlight the yeast and hop aromatics, without too much bitterness or other distractions.  The recipe is so simple:

2 lbs. dry pilsner malt extract
1 lb.  dry wheat extract (65% wheat, 35% barley)
2 oz. turbinado sugar (to slightly increase the color and alcohol)
Mosaic hops .2 oz at 60 minutes, .2 oz at 15 minutes and .9 oz at flameout.
Mosaic dry-hop/keg hop tbd.

Brewing took about 3 hours from the start of gathering water until the wort was sufficiently cooled and yeast pitched.  the extra 1/2 gallon (the second starter was really just a small version of this beer so it wasn't decanted, leaving me with extra wort) was pitched with a mix of two saison blends I had on hand, a Brettanomyces heavy mix and a clean blend of two saison strains.  Both batches took off very quickly with the 3 gallon Tired Hands version blasting huge amounts of yeast and hops through the blowoff tube.

To nerd out about about the name a little, the word Maisonette is French for little house (maison meaning house) and is used in English to generally refer to 2 floor or other large apartments in the UK.  In a happy coincidence I happened to see the word for the first time while reading Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow" the week before brewing this beer and realized that it also fits nicely as a portmanteau of the words Mosaic, Saison, and Grisette.

3/27/15
Fermentation on the Tired Hands yeast version has nearly completed.  Kegged the 1/2 gallon brett saison "B" version.

3/29/15

Brief tasting notes on version "B".  One common flavor descriptor that gets thrown around for mosaic hops is blueberry, but the fruity characters come off more to me as strawberry jam/juicy fruit gum, almost a processed or artificial berry component but when mixed with citrus, mango, and some light pine they are extremely juicy and mouthwatering.  This beer tastes excellent with the hops really dominating and I am super excited to see how the full version comes out.

4/1/15
Quick initial tasting of the Tired Hands fermented version, much cloudier, more tart, still lots of fruity pear and juicy fruit character.  Similar level of moderate bitterness but not as much hop aroma or taste. I'm guessing this is due to a combination of the yeast character covering some of it up and the vigorous ferment blowing a lot of hops out of the carboy that would have otherwise continued to provide their flavor.  Slightly cloudier in appearance but has about the same fullness of body despite being very highly attenuated.

Added 1.5 oz. of mosaic to the keg.  While the beer is tasty, it just seemed like it could use more hop character.

4/6/15
Quick tasting following a few days of keg hops: much danker and earthier with also some pine and citrus in the smell.  Like the aroma the taste is also more vegetal and earthy, not nearly as fruity as I had expected. Tartness also seems higher now than previously.  Still a tasty beer but just not on the same level as the extremely mouthwatering "brett saison" version.  I'm still holding out some hope that this can improve with more hop contact, but I doubt it will reach the amazing levels of the previous version.

White Dragons Tasting

Here Be Dragons! Was just the 7th batch of beer I brewed. A mix of a Winter Warmer/ Strong Ale and Scotch Ale the beer was split several ways at bottling. Today I found one of these, thought to be fully depleted brews, an decided to give it a try. Remembering it as having noticeable off flavors and being over carbonated even by my early, extract brewing standards, I didn't expect much.

A - as expected this one shot out of the bottle with some force giving a hazy chestnut brown beer with a yeasty, tan head.

S- this actually smells like a Scotch ale should: toffee, wood, lots of sweet bready malt and an ester/phenol profile I only detect in beers made with Scottish style yeast.

T- I don't pick up anything definitively orange or coriander (the spices added to the WD version). Taste is similar to nose, sweet, bready, estery. Finishes in an unpleasant jumble of phenols, dryness and sweet esters.  Likely fermented much too warm for this yeast. Starting to show some signs of age and oxidation but not overly so.

M- way over carbonated which seems to lead to the dryness in the finish despite relatively high body.

O- this beer is probably at least as good today as it was 2 years ago when first tasted. It's not a great beer by any means but my original tasting seemed to nail the defects and understand the parts which did work. I've not had luck with the Scottish ale blend but am wondering whether I just don't like the style, fermented too high or a combination of the two. I would like to try brewing a similar malty Strong Ale with a more neutral yeast as the malt body is very pleasant.

Brett Saison (Funky Kast #1)

I brewed a Wheat Saison with Brett on 8-4-2012.  The recipe was influenced somewhat by the great brett'd saison's I've had recently including Sofie by Goose Island and some of the beers from Stillwater Artisinal Ales.  A very simple recipe, I hope to let the brett derived flavors shine through.  I also plan to move half the batch into secondary with asian pears harvested from my girlfriend's yard and some oak cubes.

Goose Island may have sold out to AB InBev but they still make at least one interesting and delicious brew.

8-26-12 Update
Took a sample today, the beer is already down to an astounding 1.006. The small sample tasted good, with a light hoppy and fruity aroma and taste with surprisingly high sweetness for such a low gravity.  I plan to bottle/rack to secondary within a few weeks if the gravity is stable.

10-7-12 Update
Bottled 30 bottles of this batch today, moved the rest of the batch into my 3 gallon better bottle with Asian pears and .5 oz. Hungarian oak.

4-1-13 Update
Double tasting with both the straight and oak/Asian pear versions.

7-11-14

Nearly two years since brewing and more than a year after my initial tasting I just opened another bottle of this one. Bottle is highly carbonated, but not overly so, especially given the style. Appearance is a pretty red with a fast fading, lace leaving head. Smell is pear, apricot, peach, vanilla, wheat berry. Taste is wheat and stone fruit with a touch of light phenol. Finishes sweet and fruity with a moderate body. Overall this beer seems remarkably unchanged and, if I didn't know better, I may have guessed this was the oak and fruit version, the pairing was very well matche for the base. Not my favorite beer and the Brett really never showed through, but something different and enjoyable enough on a warm summer night.