Lavender Saison: Universally Popular Panty-Dropper

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One of our most successful beers this year was a Lavender Saison recipe that we brewed twice. We had to brew it twice, because the first batch went so quickly. It was the first keg we've had that went from full at the beginning of a party to kicked before the party was over. Its universal popularity surprised me. Everyone loved it: men, women, people who like beer, people who don't. We served it two ways at our Oktoberfest party: straight up or mixed with lemon sparkling soda as part of a lavender-lemon shandy/radler. This is a beer we even received a thank you note about after the party! I don't think I've ever brewed a more popular beer. 

Before we brewed this beer, Evan and I had a long debate about how to flavor the beer with lavender. We were torn between using tinctures or adding the lavender to the boil or a mix of both. We were concerned about getting too much lavender flavor and having the beer taste soapy. It seemed like it was going to be a hit or miss beer experiment, and we would be lucky if the end result was remotely appetizing. The original plan was to use lavender we grew ourselves, but our container garden was not productive enough for that, so we instead bought culinary french lavender off of amazon. I think this was the right choice. The french lavender was far more fragrant than the lavender in our garden. 

Culinary French Lavender 

Culinary French Lavender 

We changed the recipes slightly between the first and second brews. The first brew had more lavender added to the boil, while the second one had half the amount of lavender, but added lemon zest to the boil. This resulted in a more subdued beer. Still delicious, but not as good for shandies as the lavender flavor got lost in all the lemon. I preferred the original recipe, which you can see below as Lavender Saison. 

Lavender Saison

9 lbs Pilsner

3 lbs Wheat

1 oz Cascade @ 60 min

.5 oz Hersbrucker @ 30 min

1 oz Willamette @ 5 min

1/2oz of lavender at end of boil

 

Mash in @ 120, 20 min protein rest

150 for 60 min mash out

Boil for 60

 

OG: 1.056

FG: 1.009

Calculated ABV: 6.17%

Lavender Saison Ingredients 

Lavender Saison Ingredients 

Lemon Lavender Saison

9 lbs Pilsner

3 lbs Wheat

1 oz Styrian Goldings @ 60 min

.5 oz Hersbrucker @ 30 min

1 oz Willamette @ 5 min

.25 oz lavender and zest of 2 lemons at flame out

 

Mash in @ 120, 20 min protein rest

150 for 60 min mash out

Boil for 60

 

OG: 1.064

FG: 1.009

Calculated ABV: 7.2%

All in all, our experience brewing with lavender was great. I'm excited to experiment with more floral flavors and herbs in future beers. High on my list of flavors to experiment with is violet. During our recent trip to Austin, Texas, I had some great cocktails utilizing violet liquors and fell in love with the flavor. Look for more fun floral recipes in 2016! 

Saison Found

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Between professional exams and writing a book, it has been a very busy month for us. Unfortunately the blog had to suffer through a bit of silence, but we are still here and brewing.

In our last post we talked about wanting to use a yeast we had lost, White Lab's Saison III. Since that post, we have made a miraculous discovery! What once was lost was found. During a trip to Lisa's parents' house Memorial Day weekend, we were fortunate to discover the last remaining bottle of our Pumpkin Saison from the previous season. This was the last beer we made with Saison III before our unfortunate yeast bank accident. We lucked out as the beer was forgotten about in a fridge, awaiting our return. 

A note about our Pumpkin Saison: For our October 2014 pumpkin beer, we drastically changed our pumpkin beer recipe for an experiment of sorts. Typically, we would make a dark ale with the standard spice blend that people have come to expect in pumpkin beers. But after reading an article which questioned whether "pumpkin" beer was a misnomer, when the tastes of most pumpkin beers are so focused on the cinnamon/nutmeg/allspice/clove/mace/cardamom/ginger/brown sugar/vanilla flavor profiles, we decided to go a different route. We came up with a pumpkin beer recipe designed to enhance the flavor of the pumpkin. We decided a saison would be appropriate, due to the clean yeast character. We went with dark Belgian and chocolate malts for the base to give the beer a rich character without adding the brown sugar, vanilla or spices. The resulting beer was not entirely successfully. When we mashed initially, the resulting wort smelled delicious, like pumpkin muffins, and we were really excited. But when we took it a step further and added more pumpkin during the boil, it got weird. The resulting beer was a bit too starchy and did not have a long shelf life. Next time we will probably nix the pumpkin addition during the boil to see if we can get a resulting beer that tastes as good as the wort initially smelled. 

Pumpkin Saison (2014)

  • 6.8lbs munich
  • 1lb pale chocolate
  • .5lb special b
  • .5lb aromatic
  • .5lb caramunich
  • 1lb biscuit
  • 1lb crystal 60
  • .5lb flaked oats (quaker)
  • 1oz Czech Saaz 3.6%AA 60
  • 1oz German Tettnang 2.4%AA 30

Mashed around 154 for an hour with 3 cans (45oz) pumpkin, use rice hulls or expect a stuck sparge

Adding 29 oz (large can) pumpkin last 15 of boil

OG: 1.049 FG: 1.008
ABV: 5.4

With great excitement over our discovery, we packaged the bottle with care and transported it safely back to our house, where we started culturing up the dregs of yeast on the stir plate. Starting with around 500ml of 1.030 wort, we later stepped it up to a little over 1L after seeing solid activity about 36 hours after pitching. After chilling and decanting the yeast, we banked three separate tubes of saison III. Success! 

As we continue on into summer and saison brewing season, Lisa has been tending our garden between studying and running around. This year is the first year we have tried our hand at a container garden on the patio. We picked a number of herbs and spices for the garden that will be great in cocktails, particularly lavender. Since our tiny garden is booming, we decided we should probably brew something with it. Why not a lavender saison?! This will also be an interesting brew, because it will be our first time brewing with a tincture. 

Saison Found

  • 8 lbs Pilsner
  • 2 lbs Wheat
  • 1 lb 2 row/munich
  • 1oz Magnum/apollo for 60
  • .5oz Cascade for 20
  • 1oz Cascade for 5
  • Lavender tincture