FOOLCiRCLE

First brew day in a while and it turned out to be a good one. Today I brewed what will be my first attempt at a Saison, and if nothing else a Belgian Specialty Ale (catch all). Quick highlights of the day were that Robert was there to tag-along for the brew day and it was a success brew day in the rain.

So the day really started pretty regularly for me: had a game plan of when I wanted to start and over shot that by a good two hours which kind of just sends the rest of the day a little askew. One day I will learn the joys of early morning brewing, but first I have to be awake and mobile enough to meet it there. Since I knew it was supposed to rain today and I wasn’t real big on brewing in the garage, I decided to try and rig up some sort of tarp action. I decided the rain-fly from my tent would be the easiest choice because it was a decent size and already had bungee fasteners attached to all the corners. It went up fairly easy and looked alright. After going back down stairs and taking a look from the brew area it looked OK but pushed too far to the left. Unfortunately, there was nothing to attach it too if I wanted to move it more right, so I decided to leave it there and mental note that I want to buy a plastic tarp twice as long and just about as wide for the same application. The rain never got too crazy, though a little heavy at times, and the tarp totally did its job.

This was Roberts first time kicking it while I made a full all grain batch. So he got to help/watch as we did all the things he didn’t get to do before: grind the grains (got a new drill for the mill), heat and transfer hot water with no handles on the kettle while wearing flip-flops, mash-in, sparge, all that happy horse shit. Everything seemed like it went fine. I declared that there should be a bumper stick: Brewers Don’t Wear Flip-Flops. I just think it sounds funny, but it is also a good way to burn your feet.

The reason why I said that this is my first attempt at a Saison, besides that I have never brewed one, is that I always feel as if it is more difficult to stay within style guidelines than it is to just brew what you like or to not brew what you don’t like. Typically I would say my favorite “styles” of beers that I like to brew and drink are big and hoppy, experimental and one-off, and Belgian-esque,  specifically Dubbels and Tripels. I brew enough big and hoppy and experimental stuff, so that’s good, but I can’t think of the last Belgian-style beer I’ve brewed versus drank. Probably my last one was the ol’ Double Dubbel back in 2004, I’ll have to break one of those bottles open soon. So anyway, this is me taking a stab at the style, Saison, and like I said, If nothing else it is definitely a Belgian Specialty Ale.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Homebrew. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.