Saison Style

I really love working with Saison yeasts as I have limited temperature control and until Kviek yeasts showed up Saison yeasts were all I could brew with in the summer. There are a lot of really great professionally made Saisons available but still farmhouse style beers are in limited supply at most tap rooms.
While Saisons are one of my favorite styles it doesn’t come up that much here among my dear NB brewers. I find this interesting as everyone dabbles in a low abv summer brew.
I’d love to get a thread going with some favorite Saison ingredients, techniques and examples.

Perhaps a Saison poll might be a good way to begin my quest to get you all to try this style and yeast profile.
I think you can pick multiple poll answers

  • Haven’t gotten around to it
  • Haven’t tried drinking one
  • Too spicy for my tastes
  • Too yeasty for my tastes
  • In my rotation already

0 voters

I do a few a year. This year i plan on making a terroir saison when my orchard is in bloom. I dont spice mine but often blend in some homemade wine

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The 2015 BJCP Style guide moved Saison to a Farmhouse category, which makes me happy as I don’t think that existed in 2008. It can be found on page 50 and 51. In honoring their copyright I won’t copy and paste from the guide.

https://www.bjcp.org/docs/2015_Guidelines_Beer.pdf

Have you played around with saison yeasts or stuck to a favorite?

An excellent beer article on the subject…

Michael Jackson’s Beer Hunter - A seasonal search for the phantom of brewing

“He told me that he used only pale malt in Saison Dupont, that his water was hard, and that the hops were mainly Kent Goldings, with some Hallertaus. He made two additions in the kettle, but no longer dry-hopped. When I first tasted these beers, about 15 years ago, I thought they had even more character, and perhaps that was why.”

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My answer is not available on that poll. I have not yet found one that I liked enough to try to brew one. It’s mostly just that it’s a style that I don’t think I understand, or maybe just haven’t had a great commercial example to reference it to. I’m not opposed to them, just still searching for one that helps me understand what the style is supposed to be.

:beers:
Rad

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Personally i think it is a style more similar hefenweisen its mostly about the yeast. Collet from great divide CO got me hooked

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what would your poll question be? Still searching? {oops cannot edit a poll after the first 5 minutes]
If you ever have a chance to try some Transmitter they tend to do a great job with their farmhouse styles
https://www.transmitterbrewing.com/the-beer

I’m a particular fan of their S8 Rice Saison.

@radagast have you ever been to Tröegs brewery? They have a Belgian Style Saison. I’ve been pretty impressed with the beers of theirs that I can get here.

I kinda agree @brew_cat , yeast driven, often highly attenuated and super carbonated.

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Drinking a Ginger Snap Saison from our host. This ended up a little too dry at .998 FG. Which I blame on not completely crushed grains on the kit and a very strong POF+ yeast strain from White Labs vault Wild Cacao Yeast.

All hail Troegs, love that place. Last time I was there with two buddies and we all got flights to try everything we could off their tap list.

:beers:
Rad

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Years ago I was at a brewfest and Troegs had a booth there. I had never heard of them until then. They offered (generous) samples of Mad Elf. It was wonderful so I kept hitting them up for more. At 11% I was happy to have a ride home.

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But dry brews can take any adjustment as you drink so well… I learned that from my ciders…
Brew Cat… what wine?
Sneezles61

White wine especially is nice. The pinot grigio that i fermented sweet added some nice acidity

Saison yeast is one of my favorites to work with. I’m big fan of the style. I brew about 10 a year some not so traditional Saisons. Its one of the many strains that i use for some of my Sours and fruited Sours. Some of my summer recipes are Spiced not Winter Spiced, but with Cardamom Mustard seeds Coriander and other spices.

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Welcome back!
Sneezles61

I must confess that I’ve let saison fall out of my rotation, despite my choice above…I haven’t been able to source the liquid yeast I always used from Wyeast and I dumped all the old yeast bank during the long hiatus from brewing w the move.
Maybe I’ll change that up soon if I can roadtrip for some this Spring.
Good thread here where you will recognize some familiar names and some old friends…

BY125, RVA 261 Saison I, WLP565 - Belgian Saison, and WY3724 - Belgian Saison™ are all the DuPont strain.
From one of my favorite sources the Milk The Funk Wiki.
http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Saccharomyces

I used the Wyeast 3724 exclusively… given the success I just had with the dry hefewezen yeast(tapped it today…yummm) I’ll have to check out the dry DuPont options, thanks!

You might want to research that the Saison strain you use is not a “killer” strain.

I don’t think there is much worry about that. I think its pretty obsure