True French Season, Saison Beer.

After brewing a few Saisons I have extended my hand in once again trying something different, or actually retrospect to the past. After listening to some inspiring music and reading about the old French ways of beer making in their villages I refreshed my memory. We havent always had these powerful beers so accessible to make. I think it would be nice to jump back a century or two and make a Saison as they did in the little farming villages. Traditional French Saison's seemed to be at around 3%+ and heavily hopped. What would be one of the oldest European strain of Hops we have available commercially? Is there any French yeast I can purchase online from Europe. I want to capture the true essence of something from the past to share with my friends and family. If you fellows have any meaningful stories to share about old beer making tales or any folklore I would like to hear. If you have any advice simply on this, share. I might sound nutty but I really enjoy this craft and think there is much appreciation rooted right here in this online community.

I have no idea what 3711 French Saison's lineage is. I guess I'd be tempted to give it a little acid malt, since most beers back in the day had to have usually been a little sour.

I know there are guys very much into this sort of historical brewing though. I vaguely remember a HBT thread from a guy who was making a documentary on a historical brew he was doing. A little more googling & searching here should at least find you some fellow brewers who might be willing to help track down this sort of thing.

Have you read Farmhouse Ales?

Historical is sort of a vague term, beer has been constantly evolving for thousands of years. I think until relatively recently, most beers were small, infected, smoky, darkish and underattenuated by modern standards. To replicate that, you'd probably want a grist that was about 50% rauch and 50% brown or biscuit malt, but you could toss a medley of unmalted grains in as well. Hops may have been plentiful by weight, but they would have been low-strength whole hops. If not used fresh, they would have been aged and dried under conditions modern brewers would question. The hops would chiefly have acted as a preservative as in historical UK IPAs. Most of the hoppy flavor/aroma would have faded by the time the ale was consumed; saisons were often made after the harvest to drink the next year. I'm guessing they would have been oxidized and served with minimal carbonation. As far as yeast goes, 565/3724 is thought to be a mutated red wine yeast. I assume wine yeast was easier to come by in France than beer yeast, and when evolved into something that ate complex beer sugars, it outcompeted the strains that didn't evolve. Not sure how you'd recreate that, so I'd just pour the dregs of Dupont and Orval and add a small handful of raw grain.

I don't say all this to rain on your parade, just to give some idea of what an accurate recreation would entail. I love experimental beers and low-gravity saisons and hope your project turns out well.

ReverseApacheMaster said:

Have you read Farmhouse Ales?

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I haven't read that yet. Shall I check out Amazon.com?

I have it and really enjoyed reading it. It gave me all sorts of fun ideas. A must for any saison junkie. Just flipping through, it has about 20 pages directly on the history of Saison.

If you're going to get it, go to www.thebrewingnetwork.com and use their Amazon link if you don't mind (unless Amazon has ads here). Those guys have helped me a ton with my brewing & deserve all the pennies I can help throw their way.

Yeah, Farmhouse Ales is an awesome read. I'm not sure how "historical" it is but strisselspalt is a French hop. I used it in two of the saisons I've made and both turned out very well. As for the yeast, there are plenty of commercial options, or you can harvest some from a bottle though you'll likely have to do that from a Belgian rather than French beer.

Maybe try harvesting some dregs from the likes of a bier de garde like Jenlain or tres monts? I just did a saison with acidulated malt and 3711 but it's still in the primary therefore I've nothing to add whether it would be slightly sour or not. It certainly has a more sour yeast smell than my usual brews during primary ferm.

Belgium wasn't a country until 1830. It spent most of its time before (okay, and after) that being annexed, overrun, occupied, bullied or traded around by its more powerful neighbors, so I don't know if you can really find a yeast that's historically Belgian without also being French. Yeast tend to be fairly disdainful of international borders anyway.

kingwood-kid said:

Belgium wasn't a country until 1830. It spent most of its time before (okay, and after) that being annexed, overrun, occupied, bullied or traded around by its more powerful neighbors, so I don't know if you can really find a yeast that's historically Belgian without also being French. Yeast tend to be fairly disdainful of international borders anyway.

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He's looking for a historically French yeast not Belgian.

djbradle said:

He's looking for a historically French yeast not Belgian.

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The point is still a good one though. It may be rather difficult to find anything exclusively French or Belgian.

I think this mission is difficult because it seems like every farmhouse was doing their own thing. That's why the style is so wide open.

That certainly was the case because according to the dude who is the fourth gen owner of Brasserie Duyck states there were around 2,000 as late as the the early 1900's all of them near the border with Belgium and all pretty much an actual farmhouse.

You could go there and swing your fermenter around and try to capture that wild one in the countryside

djbradle said:

Maybe try harvesting some dregs from the likes of a bier de garde like Jenlain or tres monts? I just did a saison with acidulated malt and 3711 but it's still in the primary therefore I've nothing to add whether it would be slightly sour or not. It certainly has a more sour yeast smell than my usual brews during primary ferm.

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I'm not sure which ones are or aren't, but a lot of bier de garde and French stuff is pasteurized. But to the point about using Belgian yeasts, I agree that yeast probably doesn't care about borders too much. Also keep in mind that being true to the original farmhouse style would be to use what is available around -you-, not France or Belgium. That said, I understand wanting to use French ingredients and processes.

lowtones84 said:

I'm not sure which ones are or aren't, but a lot of bier de garde and French stuff is pasteurized. But to the point about using Belgian yeasts, I agree that yeast probably doesn't care about borders too much. Also keep in mind that being true to the original farmhouse style would be to use what is available around -you-, not France or Belgium. That said, I understand wanting to use French ingredients and processes.

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Indeed. Most likely as time progresses and the homebrewer is forced to use more local ingredients then we shall evolve greatly into unique and flavorful brews. . . . . Looking forward and not looking forward to this endgame.

In that case I think I'll just use my Von Wolfhausen recipe I found in Popo.

What I'll really do is open my eyes to a wild fermentation. Time to explore some more threads. I'm guessing I won't get as much of a vigorous yeast if it's local and wild, hence the fact traditional Saison being 3% abv.

One of the hypothesis out there is that the Du Pont Saison strain, and most true Saison yeasts were derived from wine yeasts. I have to say, they are rather unique in their behavior....temperature tolerance, ester productions, etc.

I'd chime in my support for reading "farmhouse ales"

I'll have to check it out then. Sounds like a good read.

I'm willing to try soon in early fall when the temps drop to 60's during day to just put some wort with cheesecloth out in the back of my woods and see what wild yeast I can grab. Many have done this with success.