TO ØL - BA Sans Frontière White Wine (Saison) Clone-ish

[RobWalker]

This is how the Frontier beer series lost their ground, missed direction and finally found themselves again. This beer has no frontiers, meaning that it can now pick and choose among brewing specialties. Instead of being an IPA, this is a rather a Belgian ale, hopped and dryhopped with continental european hops and refermented with brettanomyces. A tart, picturesque and rural beer.

Ingredients: Water, barley malt, hops, Rock Candy, yeast and brettanomyces.

I tasted this last night and it's AMAZING. It's a 7% Saison with a little brett tartness (less than Orval, almost unnoticable) then aged in White Wine barrels. The resulting beer is crisp and fizzy, dry with an incredible finish.

So the basic idea isn't too difficult, and I'd like to make something similar, maybe not an exact clone - but a few simple questions from me...

1) Hops? Any experiences here are great - I want a balanced bitterness and a little flavour, but no more. I'm thinking IBUs to 25-30 and 15g on the dry hop.

Would a little Nelson Sauvin go a miss for dry hopping? I love them, and they'll contribute to the white wine finish.

Noble hops, Styrian or East Kent Goldings are commonly used.

2) Sourness. I want a teeenchy bit, and I'd love to buy a good yeast but I just don't want to spend that much over here

Varying degrees of acidity and/or sourness can be created by the use of gypsum, acidulated malt, a sour mash or Lactobacillus. Hard water, common to most of Wallonia, can accentuate the bitterness and dry finish.

I think adding Lactic Acid is a good route for me, as I don't want to concentrate too much on the technicalities. It's how a cheap but passable berliner weisse can be brewed, and as the sourness in this beer is low anyway, I'd rather not be waiting 6-8 months for it! Any comments here welcome, but I'd like to avoid a huge timeframe and secondary fermentation.

3) Sugar - Rock candy is crystallized candy, would white sugar suffice here? Can I just knock it on the head and use pilsner malt for all 7% of it?

4) White wine - I'll soak it into oak chips, but how much roughly and what kind? A fruity NZ? How can I keep the wine from turning to vinegar while it soaks into the chips? I thought maybe adding vodka to get the wine to 25% or so, will that preserve it enough? Otherwise it's an airtight container, will soaking into oak chips push out any gases?

Cheers!

 

[RobWalker]

so ummm, would it be totally stupid to brew a basic white wine on oak chips and then use the resulting oak chips in this beer?

 

[Steve]

I've never had saison but reading things like this makes me want to source some.

Not sure about oak turning wine to vinegar but I've just put some in a DJ of cider of mine. I don't know if it will have done much but I gave it a soak in vodka for 30 mins before use.