I dont *think* any commercial Saison varietys are available in Australia. If any were, it would be Silly Saison (by Brasserie De Silly in Belgium). I know Silly La Divine is available, so maybe Silly Saison is?
Duvel is a trippel isn't it? Pale colour with fruity notes coming from the yeast? Saison should be more tart... Whitelabs have a different yeast for Saison... Interestingly, it scores highly suitble for brewing trippels but WLP550 and 500 only score 2 for Saison... weird.
In NZ a saison is a seasonal (summer) beer produced by some of the smaller breweries (Mac's and Monteiths)
I recently brewed a mild saison. Check out the details here
You will be doing well to get the Mac's or Monteiths seasonals in Oz as they don't normally ship the seasonals here.
As for the recipe it is a beauty.
I did stuff up a little and added the corriander seeds at the same time as the orange peel (at 15mins) where as the recipe I had called for it at 5mins.
The corriander didn't come through too much though which is good.
Hanging out to get home and have a couple tonight
If anything I would like to try the exact same recipe with the White Labs Saison yeast.
Doc, if you didn't have the WLP565 (Belgian Saison I) would you go a wit yeast again or a Belgian Abbey/Trappist like 500/530 or 550?
I might be completely misinterpreting the Whitelabs numbering scheme but I thought the first number had a bearing on how closely related or similar in character the strains are.... and given Saison has no wheat in the grist...
According to the White Labs website the following yeasts are recommended for a Saison with only the WLP565 yeast getting a 4 beer rating. All the rest are a two beer rating.
Belgian Saison I Yeast (WLP565)
Abbey Ale (WLP530)
Belgian Ale (WLP550)
Belgian Golden Ale (WLP570)
Belgian Wit Ale (WLP400)
Belgian Wit II (WLP410)
Trappist Ale (WLP500)
If you had any of the others on the list they would do a good job. The only one I had on the list was the 400 wit yeast.