Blending sours with young saison

[metic]

Has anyone here tried this sort of thing? I was listening to the Jester King episode of the Sunday Session tonight, and they go through the details of how the brew Das Wunderkind. My girlfriend's family live in Texas, so I've tried a couple of JK beers, but never this one. It's a 3:1 mix of young, dry hopped saison with old oak aged sour beer, blended at bottling. They talk a bit about the process, how the flavours change in the bottle, etc.

Yvan de Baets also talks about this in Farmhouse Ales (and the Jester King guys mention De La Senne beers as a big inspiration). Here's an extract from his chapter:

Another technique used frequently in Belgium was the blending of beers. This technique appears to have been used with saisons although, according to Cartuyvels and Stammer, it was not widespread in Hainaut. A beer for storage---a saison, for example---would be brewed. Called "old beer," it would be matured for almost a year or longer (from seven months to two years, it appears). This extremely sour old beer was added to a young beer that had been brewed in March or April by a farmhouse brewery or even in summer by a regular brewery. The young beer was lightly hopped in order not to impart too much bitterness to the mixture and so that it wouldn't compete with the acidity brought by the old beer. On average the proportions were one-quarter young beer to three-quarters old beer but they could vary greatly from one brewery to another. Refermentation would take place after several days in the cask, giving the beer a harmonious taste and blending of aromas. The old beer improved the young one by giving it vinous qualities and refreshing tartness as well as protection against bacterial infections. The young beer contributed freshness and carbonation and eventually allowed for the lowering of the alcohol tax to the desired level if it was a weaker beer.

The ratios he mentions are very different from the ones in das Wunderkind, and I have a bit of trouble picturing what the beer would taste like. Also, he mentions here that these beers wouldn't have been heavily hopped. But then again, it sounds like he's talking about bitterness rather than aroma from dry-hopping.

Anyway I have at least one pale sour that should be ready for bottling soon, but since it's only a 3 gallon batch I don't know if I want to dedicate some for this purpose. I'll have more options in a few months, but one thing that occurred to me though was that you could use something with a faster turn-around, like a Berliner Weisse or something soured primarily with lacto and fermented fairly dry with just brett; and then blend that with a young dry beer fermented with something like 3711 or Belle Saison.

So I guess I'm wondering if anyone has either tried this. and has tips about process or blending ratios; or if anyone has opinions about beers they've tried brewed in this way (Das Wunderkind, Saison De La Senne, etc).

 

[dantheman13]

I sort of did this with one of my 1 gallon sour beers that was around 2 years old, and the process opened my eyes to the possibilities and power of blending (this is the method I talked about on BBR last month). Basically, I took one gallon of very old sour beer, and blended it with 4 gallons of fresh wort, and then added Sacch to create a refermentation. I probably would have gotten a similar result (but I am sure somewhat different) if I first fermented the 4 gallons of wort, and then blended the two.

I think that blending all has to do with how sour your old beer is and how sour you want the end product to be. I got lucky in my first venture with this because the old beer was extremely sour, and the 1:4 ratio worked well. But the process really opened my eyes. For example, I truly understand now why New Belgium pasteurizes La Folie after blending it.

I also have tried blending my sour with citra pale ales in the glass, and have found that it too can create a wonderful blend. The possibilities with are huge, and so when I read your above post, although I have never tried that specific method, it also doesn't surprise me that it works well. But again, why stop there. The possibilities are endless with blending! One of the challenges though, of course, is stability of the beer over time (hence why I respect New Belgium's decision to pasteurize). I haven't figured that one out, but I think that in some cases it doesn't really matter in the long run.

 

[TNGabe]

Like all blending, go by taste. Pull samples from the beers you have on hand and try different blends. If you have friends with palates you trust, try and get them to help. I always invite a few friends over, but they seem to know it's just part of plot to get help bottling.

Will the finished product taste like the blend? Probably not, particularly when you're blending a mixed culture beer with a 'clean' beer, but learning to anticipate the changes is part of the fun. If you're blending beer with pedio and beer without pedio, bottle conditioning may take several months or even longer. You can always bottle several different blends of the same component beers to get a better feel to get a better feel for how the different ratios change the evolution of the final beer.

Figuring out the carbonation is another challenge. I go with the assumption that the final beer will reach the FG of it's lowest component beer. Not necessarily true, but it's a good baseline to work with to avoid gushers or potential bottle bombs. If I'm blending 4 parts saison that's at 1.005 and 1 part sour beer that's at 1.000, that would make for an avg gravity of 1.004. I would expect to reach 1.000 and produce 2 additional volumes of carbonation. If I want the beer carbed to 3.5 volumes, I'd use the priming calculation for 1.5 volumes.

Good luck. Have fun.

 

[metic]

You can always bottle several different blends of the same component beers to get a better feel to get a better feel for how the different ratios change the evolution of the final beer.

I like this idea. I was hoping to get some control over carbonation by fermenting the young beer with a highly attenuative yeast. For me, both 3711 and Belle Saison consistently take beers down to 1.000 or 0.999. I've used them when I want to dose bottles with brett, because I know can pretty much treat them as normal beer when working out carbonation. So if you combined that with an old sour that was already close to 1.000, and used heavy bottles on anything you wanted to keep around for a while, you could probably control carbonation levels fairly well.

 

[Calder]

If I'm blending 4 parts saison that's at 1.005 and 1 part sour beer that's at 1.000, that would make for an avg gravity of 1.004. I would expect to reach 1.000 and produce 2 additional volumes of carbonation. If I want the beer carbed to 3.5 volumes, I'd use the priming calculation for 1.5 volumes.

Wouldn't that make 3 volumes, not 2. There is roughly 1 volume already in the beer.

 

[TNGabe]

Wouldn't that make 3 volumes, not 2. There is roughly 1 volume already in the beer.

Read what I wrote again.

 

[Calder]

You do say 2 additional volumes. However, i guess i was looking at the last line, where you say "if you want the beer carbed to 3.5 volumes", you would use a calculator to add an additional 1.5 volumes.

 

[TNGabe]

You do say 2 additional volumes. However, i guess i was looking at the last line, where you say "if you want the beer carbed to 3.5 volumes", you would use a calculator to add an additional 1.5 volumes.

Not quite, but you almost got it that time.

 

[Qhrumphf]

The calculation for that 1.5 volumes would already assume the carbonation level in the beer based on temperature, and calculate the sugar to make up the difference, not enough sugar for an additional 1.5 volumes.

And that's an awesome trick Gabe. I haven't gotten to the point of blending sours (I think I'm just going to bottle my Lamebic straight, although probably going to blend some of the Sour Stout down the line when it's ready) yet but that'll be useful down the road for sure.

 

[CaptainArgo]

Doesn't that technically make it a Geuze?

 

[Thorpe429]

I did something similar to this recently. I brewed 10 gallons of Farmhouse Mild, fermenting with a mixture of WY3725 and grown up dregs from Hill Farmstead and Crooked Stave, and using a moderate dose of American hops. For half I wanted to experiment a bit. Once the beer got down to 1.002 or so, I blended half of the batch with 6 month old blonde wild (already at 1.000, fermented solely with lambic dregs) at a roughly 85/15 ratio.

The blend really enhanced both beers. The tropical fruit and citrus character from the hops and the Brett really came through and underneath there was a nice lemon-like acidity. I've been going through the bottles quickly, but am making sure to put a few away so that I can see how it develops over time.

Let us know how your experiment turns out! I'd love to do something like this on a regular schedule, and have been thinking about it since I listened to that JK podcast. Another thing I want to try is a saison solera like Sante Adairius does with Cask 200. There's a description of that here: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/sante-adairius-cask-200/224892/

 

[jrfehon]

If I'm blending 4 parts saison that's at 1.005 and 1 part sour beer that's at 1.000, that would make for an avg gravity of 1.004. I would expect to reach 1.000 and produce 2 additional volumes of carbonation. If I want the beer carbed to 3.5 volumes, I'd use the priming calculation for 1.5 volumes.

So you're saying 1 gravity point equals .5 volumes of CO2? I just want to make sure. I've never blended sours before but I want to in the near future.

 

[TNGabe]

So you're saying 1 gravity point equals .5 volumes of CO2? I just want to make sure. I've never blended sours before but I want to in the near future.

That's correct.

 

[Hopinista]

Doesn't that technically make it a Geuze?

Not at all. A Gueuze is a blend of different aged lambics, not lambic and saison.

 

[metic]

I splashed out for a small bottle of Brasserie des Franches Montagne √225 Saison a few weeks ago, finally got round to trying it this evening, and its got me even more excited about trying something like this. People often say that sour and bitter don't go well together, but for me at least the combination here is wonderful. Fruity, mouth watering sourness, along with a dry and lingering bitterness.

It makes me wonder what proportions they blended it at. The sourness and bitterness are both so assertive, so I would imagine they either used a very sour base beer, or that there was some refermentation by the souring bugs after the young bitter beer was blended with the old sour.

 

[TNGabe]

I splashed out for a small bottle of Brasserie des Franches Montagne √225 Saison a few weeks ago, finally got round to trying it this evening, and its got me even more excited about trying something like this. People often say that sour and bitter don't go well together, but for me at least the combination here is wonderful. Fruity, mouth watering sourness, along with a dry and lingering bitterness.

It makes me wonder what proportions they blended it at. The sourness and bitterness are both so assertive, so I would imagine they either used a very sour base beer, or that there was some refermentation by the souring bugs after the young bitter beer was blended with the old sour.

I really enjoyed that beer when I had it on draft, maybe I'll pick up a bottle sometime but I've had a hard time pulling the trigger. As far as I know it's not blended. It's a saison aged in barrels that have been used for Bon Chien.

http://www.bunitedint.com/information/brands/description/451/

 

[metic]

It is pricey. In only bought a 330ml, but I'm glad I did.

My French isn't great, but if you click on the link in my post to the BFM site, they mention cutting old beer with young bitter beer:

Je déguste et me viens l'idée de couper cette vieille bière avec la même mais très fraîche et bien amère.

Says something like: I taste it, and the idea comes to me to cut the old beer with the same beer, but young and very bitter.

They also then go on to mention a conversation with Yvan de Baets, who told them that this was an old Belgian practice.

(I think they also make fun of the US beer market a bit too, saying they called it "historical" because they were sending it here. But I might be misunderstanding it.)