Closed saison

Well, bottled anyway!

Sunday saw me bottling the dark saison co-created with Steve at Beers I've Known. On removing the top of the FV, the first thing I got was a huge hit of hops from the Pacifica I had added as a dry hopping experiment. Gravity remained at 1013, suggesting a beer of around 5.5%.

Tasting it before bottling, there had definitely been a change over the week. The sourness was there but less pronounced, the roast notes there but much more subtle now - and providing more balance than main interest now. However, the dry hopping had made this beer taste much fresher - not exactly the hit I expected from the way the hops smelt and were described, but a nice crispy taste that came from these new hop oils. I wonder what bottling will do for it?

Next time, I think I will get some kind of small bad for dry hopping, as fishing all the arrant leaves out was a bit of a pain. I primed the bottling bucket with about 60g of sugar, and syphoned from SV to bottling bucket.

Managed to squeeze 13 pints and a couple of small tester bottles out, so Steve, you have your saison! Will let you know what it's like in a couple of weeks!

At the same time, I decided to do a bit of housekeeping. I decided to get rid of the remainder of the Veno's Porter....it was just getting too much for me! I also had to get rid of three remaining bottles of the winter Belgian I brewed. Not sure what happened here, but the yeast never settled, and opening at room temperature created lots of foam (so I suspect I over primed). However, one thing to note is that months and months down the line, the beer still tasted great, if not better than when I first brewed it - a definite plus side to the faff that is bottling