#siason

“Does this taste like soap?” 

The human mind is very open to suggestion and illusion. Sarah mentions a soapy note, and it’s all I can taste. What was once a thin head of loose bubbles becomes a bubble bath. That classic Upright flavor smell, apricots and slowly fermenting beer, is suddenly infused with a note of dish detergent. The Body is suddenly slick and oily on the tongue. It’s terrible.

Twist Ending!

There’s a new grocery store that just opened on 11th and Belmont, Market of Choice. Whatever, a new Whole Foods type place, thought everyone. But apparently, this place has the greatest beer selection of any super market ever. We’re talking rare beers. Whalez, bro. Cantillon just on the shelf. Kentucky Breakfast Stout all chilling next to the Guinness.

No way. 

But it was in the Willamette Week’s Best of Portland issue right between the Best Daycation and the Best Late-Night Raffle -- Best Grocery Store Beer Selections We’ve Ever Seen. “I’ve literally dreamed that,” Sarah told me. “Cantillon at the grocery store.” Me, too. Me, too.

So we had to check it out. It’s a good beer selection. Nothing super unexpected anymore. The really hyped up stuff is gone, but there’s still plenty of exciting stuff I’ve never scene before. But I was cautious, I only spent forty bucks, on four bottles. 

One of which was this bottle of Cultivateur, a provision saison from Deschutes. It was part of their pub series, small batch beers only available at the Deschutes locations in Portland and Bend -- and soon in Roanoke, Virginia I would reckon. I figured I’d missed on Cultivateur. We don’t make it to Deschutes very often, and the beer seems to be very well regarded. But there it was at Market of Choice.

Cultivateur is a strong farmhouse ale aged in oak for eleven months. It has subtle fruit notes on the nose, a light sweetness in the middle, followed by a bit of that Brettanomyces musk into a dry finish. It tastes like pears and apricots. It tastes like scones. It super light and fizzy on the tongue. The body is like a cider, more spritzy than creamy. It’s really a nice sort of summery take on a barrel aged...

Wait! I was wrong! The original Cultivateur was a pub-only release. This is just some lame reserve series. Boo! I was lied to! By myself! And I spent seventeen dollars on this trash!

More Flowers

Sometimes add-ins and adjuncts taste like add-ins and adjuncts, and sometimes they taste like beer, like hops and malts. 

Our Pick of the Pics this week!!

We spent the last day of March brewing in our backyard/garage. This time, I took the lead which is not usual as Ryan is the brew master out of the two of us. I chose to brew 10 gallons of saison, a favorite type of beer of mine and a great time of year to brew it.

The grain bill consisted mostly of pilsner with some munich malt and a little bit of malted wheat. Recently we ordered a large supply of hops so we chose to use what we had on hand that was comparable alpha acid wise to what the recipe called for. We added sugar to the boil and used 3 different kinds of hops. In the last 5 minutes of boiling we added some spices too - coriander, black pepper, seeds of paradise, and some orange zest. For yeast we used Belgian Ale yeast that Ryan had harvested from the last time he brewed. I woke it up on Friday evening with a yeast starter and it was happy to be alive again. We pitched it after cooling the beer and our saison began fermenting happily less than 5 hours after pitching. Our original gravity reading was 1.058 - right around what I was shooting for.

Brewing wise it was one of the smoothest days we have ever had! Ryan has spent a lot of time optomizing our set up and ironing out the hiccups and his hard work paid off giving us an easy day of brewing. As usual we saved some grain to make dog treats and we used the water form cooling the beer to wash my car! Its nice not to waste it when possible. We tasted our beer after boiling it and as usual, when tasting at this point, it tasted bitter from the hops. It did have a nice intial flavor before the bitterness hit. I am predicting (hoping) for a tasty outcome from this brew day.