Brew Dudes

Second chances are tough to come by. Thankfully, homebrewing is more forgiving. Don’t like a batch simply try again! That’s what John did with a new attempt at Saison. A tough but popular style to brew well. We compare last years to the new batch head to head.

First off last years batch is visibly different. Darker. Is that age or recipe? It did t really matter once you tasted it. It had some strong dead yeast character. A touch of oxidation. And a minerally finish the was just plain weird. I described it as hammy.

The new batch was bright and vibrant. A balance between slight acidity and a Belgian phenol and ester character. Where the acidity comes from is hard to say but it works here and works well. The beer is definitely dry as we have come to expect from Belle Saison yeast. Interestingly my Saisons with the same yeast were more restrained when it came to that Belgian character. My best attempt being more citrus like.

It’s interesting to wonder how much the base grist recipe plays in the final product. Seeing as most Saison yeast will take you well down into single digit SG readings one must begin to think that the yeast must be digest some of the dextrins. And if different dextrins are present from different grits you could envision significant variances between beers brewed with the same yeast. More research to be done is suppose.

There you have it. Don’t give up in a style too soon. Taste, learn and rebrew.

BREW ON!

Not ever satisfied with mediocre beer John tried his hand again at brewing a Belgian White Ale. However, he ordered the wrong yeast strain when he purchased the fine kit from Northern Brewer. Facing a potential failure before he even started a new plan was devised. Culture up some bottle dregs and brew that White Ale something proper!

John tried a culturing Belgian White Ale Yeast from a few different sources. Ultimately, Allagash White work out the best for him. He propagated a small starter from a few bottles and then stepped up the starter to an appropriate size pitch.

The end result was a great beer that was actually reminiscent of Allagash and Hoegarten. Both great Belgian White Ales. The beer had a excellent malt aroma with floral accents of coriander and lavender or chamomile. The flavor was slightly spicy and very dry. Fully attenuated the all the beer flavors seemed to pop out nicely. That level of attenuation certainly speaks to how well the yeast culturing went.

This beer had a nice nobel hop character to it backed with a solid grainy presence which we think was the oatmeal portion of the grist coming through the predominant Pilsner malt backbone. Very well balanced recipe. As the beer warmed we could finally make note of the bitter orange peel that went into the late boil.

Interestingly, this grist and yeast combination didn’t lend much of any citrus notes. At least not to my palate. I prefer a witbier to have a little more citrus character. However, some people don’t care for it. John’s example lends itself to more flexibility to the drinker. You could easily squeeze a wedge of orange or lemon in this one if you prefer that. Maybe next time I drink one I’ll give that a try.

Overall, it was a successful attempt at culturing up some yeast from the bottle. Interestingly, we could truly identify the yeast character as distinctly Allagash. Being that we only live less than two hours away from Allagash we get Allagash White quite a bit here and are very familiar with the beers’ taste. It was pretty cool to see that replicated at the home brew level.

Got any experience with bottle dregs and making a classic example of your favorite beer style? We’d love to here about it. Drop a comment or send us an email.

BREW ON!