Good idea? Belgian Cream Ale?

[Joewalla88]

I just wanted to get some opinions. I have been planning on doing a cream ale for while now, and decided that it was you going to be my next beer. However, I was talking to the owner of a local brewery and he offered to give me some Wyeast 3724, and I started thinking that this might be fun to use. I have a bunch of different clean profile yeast, German ale yeast, us-05, Pac man, and a couple others, but I thought this might give it just a little something extra. I was going to take him up in the offer anyway to use in some other beers down the road, but I thought a Belgian Cream ale might be a fun thing to try. What do you think?

 

[thehaze]

You can call it a Belgian cream ale, but it will be a saison, which is better. So I think it is a great idea.

 

[Joewalla88]

Haha, yeah I guess so. The grain bill is different from what I think of for a saison, but you're probably right.

 

[Jayjay1976]

Sounds frigging' luscious to me. I love Belgian yeasts, they have so much flavor, and 3724 is a great strain. If it stalls out before finishing, crank up the heat to help it along. I like to mix 3724 with 3711 but this dries it out alot and I think a cream ale should retain some sweet maltiness. Then again, cream ale isn't a style I'm familiar with, though I imagine it couldn't be far off from a patersbier.

Edit: if you've only brewed with clean, lager-like yeasts, you may be in for a real treat with the Belgian saison strain. Ferment it warm for maximum esters. Some people prefer malty beers, other prefer hoppy beers, but me, I love yeasty beers. I find the ester profile of Belgian yeasts really enhance malt flavors. Hops for light bittering and a small whirlpool or dry-hop addition for fresh hop aroma. Fermenting a strain like that too cool for a clean flavor is a waste of Belgian yeast, IMHO.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

A light pale ale grain bill with a Saison yeast will work great, if you are ok with flavors a Saison yeast is going to throw. It will not even remotely resemble a cream ale though. If it makes you nervous, buy a bottle of Dupont, Hill Farmstead, or Allegash Saison to try. Those demonstrate what a Saison yeast is. It's like a Belgian ale yeast on steroids. Personally, I love them! Ferment it hot, like 85 to bring out the flavor.

Saison 101: Anything can be a Saison if a Saison yeast strain is used. Technically it means "season" or "seasonal brew" because they were brewed in the winter then late spring for supplying the planting then harvest seasons. There was never a standard grain bill for them. They were originally brewed by farmers using literally whatever they had, to quench the thirst of the farm workers. They were weak, dry and low alcohol (malty and high alcohol meant costly and drunk labor, both unacceptable). If they had no hops, spices were used instead. Common yeasts were shared, traded, and bartered as a commodity. A few Belgian and French breweries began brewing to a standard (barley and sometimes some wheat or oats) and they became more popular. Fast forward to the 20th century and the Americans started doing weird things like fruits, souring, adding sugar, pumping the alcohol to near wine levels, and over-hopping the hell out them. None of which resemble classic Saisons.

 

[Joewalla88]

I like pretty much all beers, hoppy , malty, sour, yeast. I don't discriminate.

Thanks for the saison 101. That's good to know. The local brewery who's giving me the yeast makes seasonal grisettes, which is what kinda gave me the idea. They remind me of a "saison lite", and the yeast profiles are always real nice. He hasn't used this yeast in one, but has used other saison yeasts to make them.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

cream ale isn't a style I'm familiar with

Try a can of "Boddington's Cream Ale" sometime. Cream ales are really nice and refreshing. A hint of malty but seriously smooth and quaffable. Kinda like a Coors Original Banquet with some body and flavor. Sadly, InBev owns Boddington's now, so the recipe will probably go to crap soon and the barley will be replaced with rice

 

[SoCal-Doug]

I like pretty much all beers, hoppy , malty, sour, yeast. I don't discriminate.

You'll love it then. Brew it up! I would keep the IBU's at or below 15 bittering and 5 aroma, with an OG around 1.048 to 1.052. Maybe some Crystal/Saaz or Spalt/Citra. Yum!

 

[Joewalla88]

Try a can of "Boddington's Cream Ale" sometime. Cream ales are really nice and refreshing. A hint of malty but seriously smooth and quaffable. Kinda like a Coors Original Banquet with some body and flavor. Sadly, InBev owns Boddington's now, so the recipe will probably go to crap soon and the barley will be replaced with rice

I like boddingtons. I haven't had it in a while, but it's good.

 

[Joewalla88]

You'll love it then. Brew it up! I would keep the IBU's at or below 15 bittering and 5 aroma, with an OG around 1.048 to 1.052. Maybe some Crystal/Saaz or Spalt/Citra. Yum!

I have some gr Monroe hops that I wanted to try for flavor/aroma. I've never used them before, but they sound like they might be fun for this. Hope I'm not wrong.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

I had to look up the monroe, it sounds really interesting and would likely work as well as citra or similar varieties that are fruity and citrusy. I would try 4 to 5 IBU at 5 to 10 minutes. Then something more earthy and floral early (spalt, saaz, sterling, crystal, etc). That kind of blending sounds great with the yeast funk. Of course everyone's tastes are different. You might be on to something yummy there!

 

[gunhaus]

This one was #50 in that top 100 list from a couple years back - pretty tasty too!
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=26599

 

[Jayjay1976]

Try a can of "Boddington's Cream Ale" sometime. Cream ales are really nice and refreshing. A hint of malty but seriously smooth and quaffable. Kinda like a Coors Original Banquet with some body and flavor. Sadly, InBev owns Boddington's now, so the recipe will probably go to crap soon and the barley will be replaced with rice

I know Boddingtons pub ale (a pale ale), but I have never heard of their cream ale. I tried Genesee cream ale once, but it was crap.

 

[gunhaus]

My bad, put a link to a blonde not a Cream Ale! Brain fart. I have not read it through in a while, but on the thread for cream of three crops cream ale I could have swore someone did that brew with a Belgian strain - Could be wrong, but thought i read that.

Another commercial option is Little Kings, if they are still around. I have not had one in 20 plus years, but they used to be drinkable.

 

[mirthfuldragon]

Thinking about it, there is not a lot of difference in the concept of a saison and a cream ale in that they both use a light-ish grainbill and then use adjuncts (sugar in saison, corn/rice in cream ale) to achieve a light body. The yeast character (and lack there of) is the biggest driver of the style. If you want to preserve some of the malt character, then mash on the higher side, otherwise it will probably finish around 1.000. And warm it up - I like to push Belgian yeasts warm to throw off all that Belgian goodness.

 

[Joewalla88]

Thinking about it, there is not a lot of difference in the concept of a saison and a cream ale in that they both use a light-ish grainbill and then use adjuncts (sugar in saison, corn/rice in cream ale) to achieve a light body. The yeast character (and lack there of) is the biggest driver of the style. If you want to preserve some of the malt character, then mash on the higher side, otherwise it will probably finish around 1.000. And warm it up - I like to push Belgian yeasts warm to throw off all that Belgian goodness.

Yeah, I don't know why I wasn't thinking of this as a saison. I guess I thought the 2 row and rice I was planning to use seemed off to me, and maybe because most commercial examples, at least around here, tend to be in the high 5- high 6% abv, and I'm shooting for 4-4.5. I guess that doesn't really matter though.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Try a can of "Boddington's Cream Ale" sometime. Cream ales are really nice and refreshing. A hint of malty but seriously smooth and quaffable. Kinda like a Coors Original Banquet with some body and flavor. Sadly, InBev owns Boddington's now, so the recipe will probably go to crap soon and the barley will be replaced with rice

Boddies was never a cream ale, although it was advertised as "the cream of Manchester" in reference to the head when they first introduced nitro widget cans. No, Boddies was the original hoppy blonde ale, arguably it's the ancestor of all APAs and is still referred to internally as their IPA. Even as recently as the 1970s CAMRA referred to it as one of the hoppiest beers in Britain.

There's nothing left for InBev to ruin, they did that even while they were still independent before they were bought by Whitbread, who then ended up with InBev. The big change seems to have happened in late 1981 - there's dark rumours that they tried to clean up their yeast and screwed it up, but they seem to have dramatically changed the recipe as well.