Shapeshifter — Little Saison
Wine Barrel Aged • Earthy • Mango • Coconut • White Pepper • 3.8% abv
Pours a hazy straw color with a thin head. The initial aroma is white grape, mango and coconut shell. As the beer warms, you’ll find biscuit, bread and earthy aromas come out. The first sip gives a spritzy mouthfeel, slight acidity and a dry finish. You’ll discover flavors of mango, lychee, kiwi, white pepper and clove.
The beer has a great mouthfeel and slight acidity and is very dry. It tastes like a saison, a wit, and an earthy low abv farmhouse were all mixed together and made this beer. It is hard to classify, but it has many styles mixed into it. For me, it is a success from what we wanted to make to what it came out as.
We joined forces with one of our favorite Colorado breweries, Funkwerks, to brew this “little saison”, a style-defying ale with the funkiness of saisons we love, without adding brettanomyces.
The idea was to make a lower alcohol saison with saison flavors but has a slightly funky finish. A non-funky funky beer. The use of raw spelt from BSM was used for mouthfeel and a slight haze. We used the yeast to try and use as many Texas ingredients as we could.
Our two brewmasters Pat and Gordon — longtime friends — were up to the challenge. They started with a unique grain bill: pilsner malt, malted wheat and acidulated malt, along with raw spelt berries from our neighbors at Barton Springs Mill added for mouthfeel and a slight haze.
Classic Tettnang & Hersbrucker hops, along with Vista’s mineral- rich well water, were the perfect compliment for a wild Texas saccharomyces strain. Our friends at Community Cultures isolated this yeast from a prickly pear cactus in Big Bend Park in West Texas.
The result is like a saison, a wit and an earthy farmhouse in one, all at an easy-drinking 3.8%.
Vista/Funkwerks(Fort Collins CO)/Little Saison: I met Gordon and his wife at Halter Ranch in Paso Robles during Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest weekend. We hit it off immediately and they have been friends ever since; including my pouring Funkwerks beers at the 2017 FWIB. In June of 2017 we brewed a Cellar 3/ Funkwerks collaboration, a Brown Saison using the two breweries brett strains, and aged in Halter Ranch Syrah barrels. For this beer we decided to make a Little Saison or a Session Saison, not sure what we will call it. The idea is to have the flavors and mouthfeel of a 6-8% ABV beer but do it at 3-3.5% ABV. The beer will have a spiciness to it, with an earthy finish, trying get some bretty funky flavors without using brett or micro flora.
FOOD PAIRINGS: Bacon Wrapped Shrimp, Funky Cheese, Pate, Pad Thai
GRAINS: Weyerman Barke Pils, Weyerman Wheat, Weyerman Acidulated, Barton Springs Mill Raw Spelt
YEAST: Community Culture “The Window”, Texas Wild Saccharomyces Yeast from Prickly Pear plant from Big Bend Park.
HOPS: Tettnang, Hersbrucker
WATER: Vista Well Water
PRODUCTION TIME: 8 weeks
