I’m a relatively new brewer, I’ve done four brews so far. Looking at making up a batch of the Saison de Noel for my company’s Christmas party. Just wondering if anybody has tried some flavor additions on this one and what the results were.
Thanks!
I’ll go out on a limb and guess why there have been few responses - the french saison yeast brings a nice nose, flavor and finish for the beer all by itself. The grains in the Noel also work their magic. If one makes a Christmas beer, one would like it to be Christmasy - the magic of this recipe is that all these ingredients make that happen without being overstated. If you love nutmeg or allspice, I’d suggest a bready biscuity ale - this yeast finishes so clean and dry that spices could easily overwhelm it.
My other theory is that the forum has generally slowed down. Brew TV gave the forum a lot of hop. With that gone, it’s slow and lazy 'round here.
It’s a shame it isn’t more active as before. As a new brewer and a huge fan of NB already, this forum is a gold mine to me.
Never watched BrewTV.
The forum will pick up again with the Christmas rush. 
Not sure I would bother with additions either, unless you’ve made it before and wanted to tweak it from there.
I made it last year with some friends and I did not like it young. I found this beer much better after 3 or 4 months. It kind of got a tartness to it that I enjoyed.
The brew day was not perfect when we did it, and I don’t know what the ferm temps were because one of the other brewers took it to their basement. So since the fermentation was out of my hands maybe other berewers find that its okay younger.
If you wait a short time and get some sort of heater, Wyeast’s Farmhouse Reserve made Saison de Noel amazing.
I’d agree that waiting a about 3 months will make it hit the spot.
I personally don’t think it needs any additions. I plan on making it in the upcoming months and I’m not tweaking it a bit.
I know I’m late to the game but I did an Xmas saison that’s really similar to this brew. I actually went with 1/4 ts of fresh ground nutmeg and 1/2 of a med cinnamon stick for 5 min in boil. I also secondary fermented on 1 1/2 lbs peeled and cored of Fuji apples and 2 lbs of canned Bartlett pears that were stewed down in a a can of ginger ale 1st. I added 1.5 oz of med toast oak (sanitized in rum for a cpl days) for 2 weeks. Overall the beer is really good. I didn’t boil oak to pull some of the tannins out and probably should of. It has a slight tannin bitterness at the finish. My recipe isn’t exactly like NB but fairly similar. Mine has been in bottle for aprox 2 months and may need till Xmas to develop fully.
I brewed this saison for Christmas this year and although it was a very good saison and I got a lot of praise for it, it didn’t have the Christmas notes I expected being a “Noel”. If I make it again next year I’ll probably add my own spices to the kit as described above.
I’m not familiar with that kit, but I make a Dark Winter Saison each winter (this year’s is overdue) and I add rose hips, clove, dark candi sugar, and honey. It comes out dry and spicy, but the rose hips at a tea like flavor that adds a different element. I’m a big fan of the beer and at 9%+ ABV, it helps keep you warm on cold winter days 
