Jester King founder Jeff Stuffings explains their approach to hopping their rustic farmhouse ales, often choosing to embrace large quantities of low-alpha, spicy Noble hops. He also discusses aging hops on site for their more lambic-like beers.
In this video course, Jester King founder Jeff Stuffings lays out their whole approach to brewing and fermenting saisons, table beers, and other dry, full-flavored, rustic ales that taste of their place.
Saison may bring to mind thirsty farmers in amber waves of grain—or it may remind you of intricate, multistep mash regimes aimed at high attenuation. However, there’s no reason extract brewers can’t take a crack at it. Here’s a recipe.
With saison’s high attenuation, delicate body, fermentation-driven complexities, and lasting foam, it would be easy to assume that extract brewers are at a disadvantage. Not necessarily, as Annie Johnson explains.
Named for the creek on the edge of our Missouri farm, this straightforward recipe is a recent iteration of the type of saison I like to brew often: light, dry, and smoothly bitter, with plenty of herbal hop flavor to balance the yeast-driven spice.
From malt-forward bières de garde to New World hoppy takes dripping in fruits from the bine, the approaches are myriad and the influences widespread. But which do brewers themselves love? We asked five for their favorites.
Even in 20th century Belgium, “saison” was interpreted in different ways. Those interpretations continue to branch off into myriad ways today.
Yvan De Baets, cofounder and head brewer at the Brasserie de la Senne in Brussels, has been researching (and brewing) saison for more than two decades. He has argued that “yeast is the biggest myth about saison.” We asked him to elaborate.
Based on some details shared by Pierre-Alex Carlier, here is a homebrew recipe inspired by the world-classic Saison d’Epeautre.
Saison is a dynamic creature—ever-evolving, open to interpretation, and grounded in a myth that is basically true. It chafes at hermetically sealed definitions and style guidelines. Plot twist: You get to write its next chapter.