One of my favorite styles these days is mixed fermentation tart saison. Earlier in the year I made my first attempt at brewing one myself. For that beer, I blended about 20% kettle soured berliner weisse to a saison that had brett, but no souring bacteria added. It isn’t finished yet, but from some gravity samples I think it’s going to end up being tasty, but not as tart as I expected from my blending tests.

For my second go at the style, I’m going to use a full range of brett and souring bacteria. To hopefully get a light tartness instead of full-on souring, I’m going to mash low and wait until a few days into fermetation before adding the sour bugs.

Update: After some intermediate samples I decided this beer could use some adjuncts to make things a bit more interesting. On the theme of native North American ingredients, I’m going to split the beer onto cranberries (cooked down with some red wine), blueberries, and local honey*. I’ll bottle what remains as-is.

Vitus Vinifera is the scientific name for the species that contains most varieties of wine grapes.

This “Saison Vinifera” will blend funky tart saison, oak, and wine.

A large portion of my homebrewing over the last six months has been focused on trying to emulate the great mixed fermentation beers coming out of my favorite local brewery, Sapwood Cellars. Two of those beers were delicious tart saisons that they released in fall 2019:

No Beginnings was a pale saison with Brettanomyces, aged in Sauvignon Blanc wine barrels.

I’d be willing to bet that First Blush started life as a similar base beer to No Beginnings, but it was fermented with chardonnay pomace, and finished on whole Cabernet Franc grapes. It is rosé in appearance and the flavor has a unique light, tart fruitiness.

My plan is to brew a batch of funky pale saison, split it half in secondary, and see how close to each of these I can get