Petit Saison Tasting

It was a pretty big brewing weekend both at Sixpoint and with Ray & Vlad this past memorial day weekend. Both days involved a film crew shooting for Beer Quest, a pilot show that my friends Jon and Kieran are putting together. And I promise, I'll get to that and try to post as soon as I can with some photos. Quite frankly the last 2 days at the office monkey job have sucked hard. My boss and the other assistant were out of town, and I've been working at a double pace, which means no blog posting from work. Speaking of work, I've been looking into Portland Oregon as a potential place to move to sometime in the next year or so. While I was perusing information on this beer mecca city, I came across this. If you ever want to feel even shittier about your wanky office job in New York, just check to see what your wages would equate to in a normally priced city! That's right, I could probably earn an equivalent wage bagging groceries at a Safeway in Portland as I do at my job here. But enough bitching, at least I have the Sixpoint gig on Saturdays to keep my soul alive until I find a real brewing job. For now I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

Here's a quick tasting of my Petit Saison, which since I used American hops, I thought I'd just call "Little Season". This was tasted from a Beergun-filled bottle off the keg.

Appearance: Extremely clear, dark gold color with a burnt-orange hue. Med-high carbonation, nice head stand that dissipates somewhat with time.

Aroma: Light tartness, earthy, pear and strawberry-like esters. Slight vanilla malt character and some CO2 harshness. Very classic saison aroma, just less of it.

Flavor: Earthy, somewhat grainy flavor with subdued esters for style. Some low juicy-fruit type esters with a substantial Goldings hop flavor. Finish is very dry, with a light tartness and a light lingering bitterness. No alcohol percieved.

Mouthfeel: Dry, med-high carbonation, no alcohol heat. Very clean.

Overall: Extremely quaffable, almost had me going into the next sip before the first one was swallowed. Subdued esters and almost lager-like malt qualities. Needs more saison character. I'd definitely raise the fermentation temp to increase yeast character, since the low amount of ingredients already tends towards a very subtle flavor. Tasted better off the keg than from the bottle. It didn't have the harsh CO2 bite that the bottled beer had.