Saison for change

My home brew supply is dwindling--or at least I'm not drinking a bunch of my dark brews that will be better in October or November. The hefeweizen is gone, soaked up at a party. I have one bottle left of a couple different lagers, and one of the brown pale ale. So what do you do? Brew!

Tony, my brew compadre, had time on his hands to whip out a couple batches, while I was saving the children at the Minnesota capitol. So as soon as he skipped town to climb a mountain, I brewed a Saison. It was certainly a challenge doing it myself, from planning the recipe to measuring the water to filling the carboy, but I enjoyed getting more into the science of it. My friend and award winning homebrewer Don provides good advice, and he sat in for the mash. In some ways I leaned on him too much, but it's nice to get another perspective.

The beer is still in the primary fermentor, but it's ready to age a bit in a secondary. I'm excited to try it, as I added some orange peel and went light on the hops, and hopefully the yeast character will be interesting and tasty. I've been drinking a lot of Saisons this summer, so it will be good to compare.

While this summer certainly hasn't been the brew summer I expected, due mostly to our switch to all grain, which take a lot more time, things are about to change. Tony bought a 15 gallon brew kettle, so we can whip out 10 gallons at a time. Tomorrow will bring our first batch in the kettle, a pale ale. Yay!