Monday, January 24, 2011

Brewing Saison at McKenzie's

Which American brewery makes the best saisons?

Southampton Publick House (their brewer literally wrote the book on the style)? Upright or Stillwater, since they focus on saisons?  Maybe one of the breweries with the best ratings: Ommegang (Hennepin), Boulevard (Saison Brett), or The Bruery (Saison de Lente, and Saison Rue)?  I bet not many of you said McKenzie's Brew House despite the fact that their Saison Vautour has won three of the last four GABF golds for the style (I'm not a huge believer in competitions, but 3 out of 4 is saying something). It's interesting how beer hype/publicity works sometimes.

Ryan Michaels, the head brewer at both McKenzie's locations, was gracious enough to let Nathan and I kick around some ideas with him and then join him and Gerard, (the long term assistant brewer) at the Malvern PA location to brew a darker take on saison. I think part of the reason that their beers don't receive the publicity they deserve is that some beer nerds stopped paying attention to Mckenzie's a few years ago when their previous brewer Scott "The Dude" Morrison left.  Another contributor to their sleeper status is that McKenzie's doesn't announce bottle release days, they just quietly put batches up for sale at the pubs as they are ready.

Their process has slowly developed into something a bit different from the standard saison brewing procedure.  The recipe for Saison Vautour is fairly simple: mostly pils, with some rye malt for rustic character, and sugar to ensure high attenuation with White Labs Saison II.  In 2007, the first year they won gold, the beer was clean (just Saccharomyces) and fermented in stainless.  That version is one of their house beers, dry, big pepper, bright, easy to drink.  The 2009 win was for the same beer with an accidental dose of Brett in the bottle (they now only bottle funky/sour beers).  The 2010 version was started in stainless for a few days then pumped into barrels where the resident microbes went to work.  The bottle of the barrel aged version we sampled was hard to call a saison, since it had a nice sourness, big farmyard funk (think Fantome on a good day), and loads of complexity (thankfully the judges at GABF are given more license to select the best beer than BJCP judges have).

McKenzie's sour barrel program isn't too much different from our own.  They add the dregs from good sour beers they drink, and the bugs are further disseminated by a thief carrying them from one barrel to the next (like a bee exchanging pollen at each flower it visits).  Ryan even paid me the compliment of dumping the dregs from a bottle of Funky Dark Saison into one of his barrels (yes I realize how nerdy it is that I'm excited to see the sludge from one of my bottles going into a barrel).

We got a chance to try a good number of their beers while we were at the brewery, and from bottles we took home.  Their Biere de Garde was one of the best I've had, they add a small amount of black pepper added to simulate the flavor of being boiled in a copper kettle (an idea stolen from Tom Baker).  Their sours have a style all their own, with beers like a soured Baltic Poter (Oer Faute), a tart low alcohol Grissette (Grissette), and Tristessa probably the best funky/hoppy beer I've tried (they couldn't get the hop sock out of the barrel so it has stayed in there for a few more beers).  They age in a combination of used French oak from a local winery and American oak spirit barrels (we purchased one of their used Laird's apple brandy barrels while we were up there).

The beer we helped to brew was a brown saison. Most of the color came from dark candi syrup with some Munich and CaraMunich for added maltiness and dark fruit respectively.  We were aiming for a slightly higher gravity, but the efficiency tanked (for unknown reasons) and we ended up adding some extra candi sugar to the boil to get back up to a respectable level.  For hops, just a small bittering dose of Goldings near the start of the boil. 

Ryan pumped the yeast into the tank where it mixed with the beer as it exited the heat exchanger in the low-60s.  After the beer fermented for two days, half of it was moved into two wine barrels and a second-use apple brandy barrel.  Each barrels will be fed with either honey (wildflower, buckwheat) or jaggery (Indian palm sugar) as they continue to slowly ferment.  When the beer is ready Nathan and I are planning to go back to assist with blending/bottling.  The plan for that isn't set; the clean beer might be served on tap, the barrels could be bottled separately, or blended together depending on how they taste.

Nathan and I brought along a carboy and took home 5 gallons of the pitched wort.  We used the yeast cake and 2 gallons of the beer as a starter for our Golden Apple Brandy Solera, but that will have to be another post.

McKenzie's Dark Saison

Recipe Specifics
-----------------
Batch Size (Gal): 5.00
Total Grain (Lbs): 15.25
Anticipated OG: 1.062
Anticipated SRM: 14.8
Anticipated IBU: 21.2
Brewhouse Efficiency: 49 %
Wort Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Grain/Sugar
------------
74.0% - 11.29 lbs. German Pilsener
10.6% - 1.61 lbs. Maris Otter
5.3% - 0.81 lbs. German Munich Malt
1.9% - 0.29 lbs. CaraMunich Malt
5.3% - 0.81 lbs. Pale Candi Sugar
2.9% - 0.44 lbs. D2 Candi Sugar Syrup

Hops
------
1.06 oz. East Kent Goldings (Pellet 5.00% AA) @ 70 min.

Yeast
------
White Labs WLP566 Belgian Saison II

Water Profile
--------------
Profile: Pennsylvania

Mash Schedule
----------------
Sacch Rest - 60 min @ 150

Notes
------
12/18/10 Brewed at McKenzie's.

Our 5 gallons of wort received the dregs from a few McKenzie's beers we drank.

1/23/11 Racked 3 gallons to secondary (3 gallon glass carboy), the other 2 gallons and the yeast cake into the apple brandy barrel beer.  Still tastes clean, nice peppery character from the yeast.

1/25/11 Good timing on this post, I just heard that the clean version is on tap at McKenzie's!

10/15/11  Blended some, bottled the remaining 2 gallons with 1.5 oz of cane sugar. Has some oak character despite not having had any added.

4/5/12 A tasting, finally. Amazingly complex, apples, oak, lambic funk, malt. A beautiful beer.

16 comments:

John-Patrick said...

I'm interested to see how this brew progresses. These types of projects are what keep me focused, yet ever-more experimenting.

Marco Aurélio Piacentini said...

Don´t need to say I´m a Style enthusiast... altough the only Saison I ever tasted was a Saison Du Pont.

I wish the style were more popular, specially in Brazil, but my countrymen are still starting to learn something about beer, once we still under the dictatorship of the Interbrew empire of evil.

Yes, the company chairmen are brazilian... what a shame.

Anyway... Is nice to know there are ppl doing nice stuff in U.S., after all U.S. is where I started learning to appreciate REAL beers.

Mike, if there´s a way to obtain some samples of those (both funky and reg saison),please, tell me how. I´ll be happy to spent some bucks with that, specially if I can crop some dregs to grow some saison yeast...

Cheers!

Anonymous said...

Had a few of the McKenzie sours at GABF this year, among the best beers I tasted for sure.

The Mad Fermentationist (Mike) said...

America wasn't too different a couple decades ago, if there is interest craft beer will rise like it has in many other countries.

Sadly Mckenzie's doesn't even distribute locally (let alone ship internationally).

Marco Aurélio Piacentini said...

All this discussion let me with my mouth full of water...

I´m craving for a Saison... lol.

American Airlines, please help meee!!!

Matt said...

Very cool. I've never been a huge fan of Hennepin. For me it's just too darn clean. Overall my favorite has to be Saison Dupont. I think that it defines the style and has just the right amount of sour/funk and great dryness.

As far as American Saisons go I love Jolly Pumpkin's Bam Biere and the Bruery's Saison Rue.

Adrian Avgerinos said...

Hold on a sec...

"they add a small amount of black pepper added to simulate the flavor of being boiled in a copper kettle (an idea stolen from Tom Baker)."

What? Can you elaborate? I've never heard that and it doesn't make any sense to me. Black pepper tastes like copper? Copper tastes like pepper? WTF?

The Mad Fermentationist (Mike) said...

It was a tiny amount, something like 1 oz per batch added near the start of the boil. The idea is that it adds a slight rustic character that is supposedly similar to the faint metallic character you might get from boiling in something besides stainless steel. I couldn't pick it out, but it was one of the better Biere de Gardes I've had (and tasted more “authentic” than most other American versions).

Mike Rissell said...

just tasted this last night at station taproom in downingtown, pa. It was great. perfect balance of sour and tartness. Ryan brought it for a beer dinner that was highlighting Tired Hands, McKenzies and Earth-Bread+Brewery.

Unknown said...

Great to hear, we'll have to get up there to try some.

Anonymous said...

Sorry Mike, but I blended it without you. I kegged of from each of the single barrels for you to try when you make it up :)

-Ryan

(Oh... and we bottled a ton)

The Mad Fermentationist (Mike) said...

No worries, glad to hear it came out well.

AaronWesternNY said...

I am looking at the comment about the pepper used to give a "rustic taste." Are you talking 1 oz of whole peppercorns in a 5 gallon batch?

The Mad Fermentationist (Mike) said...

You know I don't remember the exact amount they use, but it was a lot less than that. I believe it was on the order of only a couple ounces for their entire batch. I'd start out with a couple grams added with 10-15 minutes left in the boil.

Daniel Pipitone said...

I brewed this base recipe (as written) and it's finishing up now (it's around 1.000) and at the time of kegging, it tasted a bit on the sweet side for what I expected it to be. My mash temp was spot on, so is there any reason I might be experiencing an overly sweet finished beer? (I am not planning to sour or fruit it, but it is aging on oak chips).

The Mad Fermentationist (Mike) said...

Sounds like a perceived sweetness from the fruity yeast esters. At 1.000 there is very little actual sweetness left. What temperature did you ferment at? Time should mellow it out.