Bar Swap: '1st Time For Everything'

[Lecterfan]

I haven't got to any of the swap beers as yet. Need to set aside some time for this important task!

Same here. I'll probably attend to it as of 3pmish on Friday haha.

 

[vic45]

Last night I had pommie_granite's Saison and found it pretty hard to fault. Clear, spot on carbonation, good flavour all the way to the end.
I need a Saison on tap.
Just had a bottle of my swap, not a black IPA, lets call it American Stout. Goes ok then.

 

[pommie_granite]

I have had a couple since the swap (top night by the way)

Wakka's ESB

Good foamy head, retained well, nutty brown colour as i would expect for an ESB, pretty clear through the glass, carbed pretty much to form too i thought.
Aroma i couldnt place, bit of floral to it??? Nutty taste which i like, maybe a touch sweet, didnt get that much of a bitter finish? If i was doing your recipe for myself, i would look at bumping up the bittering a bit. All in all i'd go back for more

Muscovy's French Saison
Bonjour! Really interested in this to examine the different yeast used. Carbs, head, clarity all good. For me i noticed more of a cloves element to the taste as compared to my belgian saison. Would have liked the taste to dwell a bit longer in the mouth, didnt seem to stick around? Good quencher, really got that dry finish :icon_cheers:

Cheers guys, some good supping (and there was plenty of that on the night too.... )

 

[pommie_granite]

Last night I had pommie_granite's Saison and found it pretty hard to fault. Clear, spot on carbonation, good flavour all the way to the end.
I need a Saison on tap.
Just had a bottle of my swap, not a black IPA, lets call it American Stout. Goes ok then.

Cheers vic45. If i was to do it again i would up the carbs a bit and not sure where it comes from but i get a bit of a bitter/astringent finish at the very end that i'd like to reduce (might play with hops to see if its that or a process problem - any thoughts from anyone please chip in). Reasonably happy with it, made a couple of crap batches previously so have brought things back to first principles and happy to get something drinkable!

(means i don't have to break into the oatmeal stout just yet h34r: )

 

[Muscovy_333]

I have had a couple since the swap (top night by the way)

Muscovy's French Saison
Bonjour! Really interested in this to examine the different yeast used. Carbs, head, clarity all good. For me i noticed more of a cloves element to the taste as compared to my belgian saison. Would have liked the taste to dwell a bit longer in the mouth, didnt seem to stick around? Good quencher, really got that dry finish :icon_cheers:

Thanks for the feedback Pom. I agree!

I prefer to drink this beer at 10 degrees to get a bit more flavour impact...interested to hear what others think?

 

[Lecterfan]

Dearest Muscovy,

I enjoyed your farmhouse ales on the night, and am drinking yours (FS) now that is at ambient back-porch temperature...probably about 8c-ish. Is this the same as the one we tried on the night?

Good carbonation (something that took me a few saisons to realise!), clear and pretty bright, a wonderful deep straw colour, good head that dissipated quickly. Aroma is tart and fruity, wonderfully dry...a great gully washer after a hard session of thrashing the sheets threshing the wheat, which is largely what it should be!

I think expecting lingering flavours out of a beer this dry is perhaps asking too much, given the AABC/BJCP I think it is pretty good - citrusy aroma with a hint of pepper in the taste, the tartness lingers but there is no real 'malt', but personally I'm not missing it. All I'm missing is another 6 of these beers (actually I'm about to hit one of mine after this that finished out at 1.002 so should be a good comparison).

P_G yours is on the hit-list for tomorrow! (doubt I'll say anything different to what you heard last tie though haha).

 

[Muscovy_333]

Dearest Muscovy,

I enjoyed your farmhouse ales on the night, and am drinking yours (FS) now that is at ambient back-porch temperature...probably about 8c-ish. Is this the same as the one we tried on the night?

Good carbonation (something that took me a few saisons to realise!), clear and pretty bright, a wonderful deep straw colour, good head that dissipated quickly. Aroma is tart and fruity, wonderfully dry...a great gully washer after a hard session of thrashing the sheets threshing the wheat, which is largely what it should be!

I think expecting lingering flavours out of a beer this dry is perhaps asking too much, given the AABC/BJCP I think it is pretty good - citrusy aroma with a hint of pepper in the taste, the tartness lingers but there is no real 'malt', but personally I'm not missing it. All I'm missing is another 6 of these beers (actually I'm about to hit one of mine after this that finished out at 1.002 so should be a good comparison).

P_G yours is on the hit-list for tomorrow! (doubt I'll say anything different to what you heard last tie though haha).

Thanks mate,

I really appreciate your feedback, and i am looking forward to sussing out the other Saisons in the swap (This time i wont be cross eyed and thinking about mens issues whilst tasting!)

I have only tasted a couple of the swap beers so far but i feel it is a great learning curve for me and it is sure curing my cellar palate.

 

[wakkatoo]

I have had a couple since the swap (top night by the way)

Wakka's ESB

Good foamy head, retained well, nutty brown colour as i would expect for an ESB, pretty clear through the glass, carbed pretty much to form too i thought.
Aroma i couldnt place, bit of floral to it??? Nutty taste which i like, maybe a touch sweet, didnt get that much of a bitter finish? If i was doing your recipe for myself, i would look at bumping up the bittering a bit. All in all i'd go back for more

Cheers P_G. Agree with all of that. For a bit of fun it was dry hopped with some cascade for a week or so in the fermenter before bottling. I agree it is a touch on the sweet side. Had one last night and its pretty much ready to go fellas.

I had P_G's saison tonight. I was in the mood for one and it didn't disappoint. When I wasn't drinking it, I was just taking in the aroma that put me back in a bar somewhere near Mannekin Pis in brussels. Nice job, really enjoyed it. :beer:

 

[vic45]

Have had a couple more, not as many as before my last post though :huh:
Should stop cross eyed, post pints, posting.

Muscovy's Saison.

Good carb, clarity and color. Head dissipated fairly quickly, certainly very dry and maybe a bit of yeast stress. Could of been a bottle issue as no-one else has detected any.

Beastie's ESB.

Carb spot on for style, good clarity, nice caramel. Stonefruit? in the finish. Would be a ripper through a handpump.

Herbo's Dunkleweizen.

Carb maybe a tiny bit low for weizen, good color, bubblegum, banana and liquorice? flavors. 3068? Very tightly packed head that laced well.

All this beer tasting is tough work !!

 

[Lecterfan]

Muscovy Vienna Ale. Again very clear and bright (do you have a specific fining, CC or filtering routine?), great aroma of malt and some spicy/earthy hops. Well carbonated, great for this beer, nice and spritzy without any bite, good attenuation, finished quite dry and moreish. Good head, dissipated quite quickly. Another excellent beer!

Herbo! Herbo old boy! I am LOVING this munich dunkelweizen monster. Beautiful deep ruby colour, fantastic yeast aroma mixed with grainy sweetness, lovely creamy head that persisted to the last mouthful (which was a shorter period of time on the second glass haha). It tastes and smells like it could/should perhaps have attenuated a bit more and thus I think this could have been balanced with a touch more bitterness if you intended to drink 3 litres of it in one session, but it doesn't taste particularly out of whack regardless. Is this a bit heavier on the munich than the wheat? I.e. more a munich dunkel than a dunkelweizen? It has been well enjoyed!

Pommie_Granite saison. A lovely example, wonderful aroma, not quite as dry as some examples but ab-so-loot-lee lovely nonetheless. As per our convo on the night try checking out some of Tony's comments on wy3724 available in various threads and maybe try bumping up the temp to finish off and create some bigger flavours from the yeast (perhaps these characteristics I enjoy are some of the flavours Vic45 picked up as stress in Muscovy's version - I think in this style, after a good hard couple of readings of Farmhouse Ales it would be difficult to have a saison that is too dry or has too many yeast characteristics to be honest, learn-ed judges may disagree). Having said all that, there is nothing negative I can say about this, I'd just be interested to see what you reckon of a similar beer 'pushed to the limits' so to speak. I re-iterate, bluddy delicious, just picking up from the night, be interested to see what you think about pushing the yeast a bit more and/or mashing lower. Having said all that, my next saison will be a more complex malty grain bill to see how that works with low mash temps and high fermentation temps to see how it goes... I think so far I prefer 3711 to 3724 so I may be biased more than others...

 

[Muscovy_333]

Have had a couple more, not as many as before my last post though :huh:
Should stop cross eyed, post pints, posting.

Muscovy's Saison.

Good carb, clarity and color. Head dissipated fairly quickly, certainly very dry and maybe a bit of yeast stress. Could of been a bottle issue as no-one else has detected any.

Thank Vic 45,

You have picked the same thing that I question about this beer. Although the more 3724 i come across the more i think it has done what it was supposed too. Fermented at 32degrees for 5 weeks to get to 1.003.

 

[Kleiny]

Wish i had the time last week to pick my swap batch up from Lecter.

Gettin to some drinkun today while the footy is on

oh well another week to either mature or get drank up by Lecter himself

 

[Lecterfan]

Wish i had the time last week to pick my swap batch up from Lecter.

Gettin to some drinkun today while the footy is on

oh well another week to either mature or get drank up by Lecter himself

I did swap one of mine for yours as yours are being kept cooler and I wanted to try it hee hee hee...other than that all yours are present and accounted for!

 

[Muscovy_333]

Muscovy Vienna Ale. Again very clear and bright (do you have a specific fining, CC or filtering routine?), great aroma of malt and some spicy/earthy hops. Well carbonated, great for this beer, nice and spritzy without any bite, good attenuation, finished quite dry and moreish. Good head, dissipated quite quickly. Another excellent beer!

Thanks Lecter,

I am in a 'malt phase' with my brewing at the moment, trying out grists that are heavy in a particular grain to improve my understanding of particular malt profiles in finished beers.

This beer is an absolute experiment with Vienna and is a result of my first HERM step mashed beer. I never use finings or filtering in my set-up.

It had a long mash schedule (probably close to 100mins) perhaps that is why it has cleared up nicely.
No-chill, CC over night, brewed with US-05

 

[pommie_granite]

Wakka - glad you enjoyed :beer:

LF - cheers for the feedback - yeah will have a look at the 3724 chat and would like to run some comparisons of the different saison yeasts to see what happens. At the moment i prob swing more towards the belgian saison but i wouldnt like to hang my hat on that verdict until i have worked with both. I certainly didn't hold at the same sustained temp as Muscovy, i pulled it up to 29C over the first week and then held there for one more week before bottling so next time there is an opportunity to let the yeast works its magic and perhaps clean it up a bit more. I think the aroma has faded a little since the first one i tried which was around a week after bottling (i bottled prob 4-5 weeks ago? will have to boot up beersmith to have a look). Still, for me it was better than i expected for a first stab at it.

Muscovy - was thinking similarly, after the fact, about your ale in terms of letting it warm up a bit (my bugbear with many bars and pubs is serving up their beer too cool) - shame we only get one of each to taste! Prior to the next swap i'll have a think about that and include my preferred serving temp on whatever i'm putting in.

Beastie -
Had a go on your ESB last night, and really enjoyed it. I know around vic 45's i was picking up some sweetness from your beer, I wonder if starting the night on 3 different saisons and a belgian pale/saison mongrel played some games with the old palate....!! I didn't pick that up anything like as much when trying it as the first beer of the evening yesterday.

I let it warm up a bit from the fridge to get closer to an ale serving temp and it was a pleasure to drink, quite a fruity number, some nice yeast (?) character which combined nicely with the malt. There was a tiny bit of a sweet finish but i don't think it detracted from the overall experience. Lovely colour and held its head all the way to the finish.

(e: got my yeast numbers all mixed up)

 

[Lecterfan]

Beastie: I am not too proud to admit when I am Wrong.... I Agee with pommie_granite, the saisons probably changed our palates a fair bit, this esb is really drinkable, good malt and clean flavour. I'd still love you to brew one using some imported malts, particularly some imported crystal, but drinking this at room temp on a cool Sunday arvo it is really nice, thanks beastie!

 

[Beastie]

Hi Pommie Granite and lecterfan. Thanks for the good feedback. Although I haven't had anymore since then, I will take Lecterfans advise and use English malt next time. I will try and have some ready for Deanos.

By the way, I haven't had any of the swap beers yet. I will get stuck into a couple over the weekend.

 

[herbo]

Thanks all for the comments on the dunkelweizen.

Muscovy - peninsula Shiraz, nice descriptor.

Vic45, yeah the yeast was 3068.

It tastes and smells like it could/should perhaps have attenuated a bit more and thus I think this could have been balanced with a touch more bitterness if you intended to drink 3 litres of it in one session, but it doesn't taste particularly out of whack regardless. Is this a bit heavier on the munich than the wheat? I.e. more a munich dunkel than a dunkelweizen? It has been well enjoyed!

Notes say it finished at 1.011 so I don't think it could attenuate much more than that. 52% wheat, 23% Munich. Basically the malt base is from "brewing classic styles" with a couple of small tweaks.

Apologies but I am yet to taste any!

 

[Lecterfan]

Notes say it finished at 1.011 so I don't think it could attenuate much more than that. 52% wheat, 23% Munich. Basically the malt base is from "brewing classic styles" with a couple of small tweaks.

Just me talking shit again, obviously my crusty old taste buds require a bit more bitterness haha. Beautiful beer none the less.

Wakka's ESB: as stated last time, nicely made beer, the crystal stands out a bit too much (assuming this is the same beer/ingredients/recipe as your last one). Vic45 and I were discussing yesterday how difficult it is to bottle carbonate this sort of beer because it really needs to be splashed into the glass in a pseudo hand pump style, and anything over 1(ish) volumes at ale-serving temps creates a frothy nightmare. I did enjoy this beer, the hop character is nice, well attenuated/nicely bittered (I'm scared to talk about attenuation after messing up my description/prediction with Herbos haha) and not much more to add...when are we getting a taste of a braggot???

 

[wakkatoo]

Patience dear grasshopper. Patience. A braggot is on the cards, but it will only be in a small batch size.