Pleuviot Saison Tasting

 
Brewed this beer experimenting with 2nd generation Belgian Wit yeast as a substitute for Saison yeast strain to see if similar flavors could be generated leaving the fermentation on the high-end of the scale.  In a word did this work?  No.  In many words:  this beer has a Belgian Ale taste to it, it has some subtle spiciness, fairly good nose, more than one person who tried it commented to the effect "is this a belgian wit, its sorda dark," its good, but is is not Saison (I'm not renaming it)".

That being said, using a Belgian Wit yeast in a non-belgian Wit recipe (i.e. not ~ 50% unmalted wheat) can produce good beer so its certainly worth experimenting with but using it as a saison yeast substitute is a stretch.

Apperance:

Dark brown with some haze, off-white head.  Figs used imparted a good bit of color to the beer.  The head retention is pretty good and their is a fair bit of small bubbles streaming up the glass (left it at 14 psig for 10 days by mistake).  Darker than a typical saison (well, the nice thing about this style is the broad range in ... everything) but pleasant to look at.

Aroma:

Subtle fruit and nut notes but distinct enough for this style.  A bit of hop aroma but subdued.  Frankly, it smells like beer, which is never a bad thing but not exactly a good thing.  Nothing distinctive to get one ready for the flavors.

Taste:

Nutty and malty with some residual sweetness.  Maltier than I would have expected.  Some spiciness but not as much as one might expect.  As the glass warms the spicy flavors come out more:  probably a beer best served in the 50's not the 40's (F).   Good hop balance with hop bitterness accumlating as the pint goes down.  There are good flavors here, just not the "flavor density" one might want.  Very drinkable.

Taste tidbits - tried after 2 days keg conditioning and tasted a metallic flavor which apparently can be caused early in the forced carb process.  It dissipated.  Also, noted a butter tasted in the head of one of the pints I poured, but not the body.  May be some diactyl preseant but not much.

Mouthfeel:

Creamy and substantial, not thin at all.  Coats the mouth well and leaves no dryness (until the morning).

Overall:

A good homebrew, just not great.  Misses the mark wrt want I wanted, Saison tasting beer with Belgian Wit yeast.  Disappointed that Figs did not come out more.  This beer does go down well and is completely enjoyable.  I'll probably uses a similar recipe next year with a Saison Yeast strain and do a taste comparison down the road.