If Averie Swanson had her way, saison would outsell IPA among craft beer aficionados. The longtime saison brewer hopes to move beyond stereotypes and romanticized history and show (through beautifully designed and constructed beers) that saison provides a broad palette for brewers to explore flavor. With her Keeping Together (https://www.keepingtogether.com) brand, now based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, she hopes to write a new chapter for saison brewed in the United States.
In this episode, she tackles both the theoretical and the practical, discussing:
building characterful grain bases for saison with everything from smoked malt to oats
designing within constraints
downplaying Brettanomyces in mixed culture fermentation
isolating Saccharomyces and rebuilding a culture around it
testing how new ingredients work in saison
using acidity as an element of structure
And more.
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