Saison: Naturally Wild (June-July 2016)

Vienna lager is the perfect ingredient for this BBQ chicken dish.

With one base recipe, you can create many distinct saisons just by manipulating the hopping. Here we’ve used Liberty and Hallertau to create a saison that has a spicier and slightly more fruity hops flavor and an herbal/floral aroma.

With one base recipe, you can create many distinct saisons just by manipulating the hopping. Here we’ve used Fuggle and Styrian Goldings to create a saison with a gentle floral, earthy, and spicy hops flavor and aroma.

Brewing with sour- and funk-inducing “bugs” presents its own challenges, as brewers from Jester King Brewery, Two Roads Brewing Co., Almanac Beer Company, and more, explain.

Have you ever wondered how different strains of Brettanomyces impact the flavors in beer? A few enterprising breweries have launched beer series that explore this very question.

Here we’ve used Amarillo, Chinook, and Nugget to create an American saison with a bright pineapple and blackberry flavor and a distinct resiny Nugget aroma.

Local ingredients made saison what it was, and while we tend to think of that in terms of yeast, grains, and spices, there’s no reason to exclude hops from that list.

Turn up the heat with these spicy and savory Southern sausages.

Cellarmaker Brewing Company is one of the most cellar-focused craft breweries in San Francisco, if not the country, and accordingly named. They’ve built a reputation as a Bay Area institution in less than three years.

From wet-hopped beers to the freshest possible bottles offered to drinkers to the unquenchable desire to keep refining and keep showing drinkers a new side of hoppy beers, El Segundo Brewing has become L.A.’s premier IPA brewery.

American brewers interested in making beers that fit under the rather broad umbrella of saison don’t necessarily need to look toward Wallonia. The answer may be in their own backyards.

These self-professed Kung Fu and hip hop fanatics, with beers named in honor of the Wu-Tang Clan, are on the march to take their brand of unrepentant hops-forward beers to beer fans throughout the Rockies and PNW. Can anything stop them?

On your next trip to the Centennial state, venture north of Denver to explore these off-the-beaten-path destinations in one of the state’s brewing hotbeds—the Boulder-to-Longmont corridor.

…and ferments the beer. Here are some ways to give your yeast cells a steady and productive fermentation environment to ensure that your beer turns out great.

“Balance” is an overused word in brewing parlance, but for Brewmaster Mitch Steele, it’s valuable only within the context of intensity and character.

This extract and density meter for homebrewers is on the pricey side but delivers fast and accurate readings for a fraction of the cost of higher end professional units, making it a great option for nano breweries.

Five brewers comment on four Brett saisons.

So it’s warm out, and you’re itching to brew a summer beer with a super-dry finish that begs for another refill? Instead of bumping up the simple sugar adjuncts in the recipe, try a step mash.

The “Love Handles” department in Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine® is devoted to great beer bars. Here are the three beer bars that we explored in Issue 13 (June/July 2016).

Brew this spicy sessionable saison (say that fast 3 times!).

Brew this saison that is modeled on Saison Dupont, the definitive example of this beer style.

Here’s a conventionally made saison with the OG kicked up to 1.080 and a good dose of Chinese white pepper and bitter orange peel.

This bière de garde version is possibly the definitive representation of the style.

Here’s a version of bière de garde that is a bit higher in alcohol and somewhat sweeter, with a pleasant honey aroma and flavor.

Have some fun with your saison by forgetting hops selection, timing, and IBUs and use a single addition of leftover hops.

When Underberg, an herbal bitter digestif, is infused into this recipe, it creates a sophisticated brew with hints of anise and herbs, bittersweet cacao, and a restrained smoky bite.

Use Northern Brewer hops for a saison with a hops character that is like strolling through the Black Forest.

El Segundo Brewing Company Founder and Brewmaster Rob Croxall shared this recipe for one of the first IPAs he brewed.