A few months back I brewed an attempt at a clone of Anchorage Brewing Love Buzz Saison using a recipe from Embrace the Funk that was given in
an interview with the brewer Gabe Fletcher. This was also the first beer I attempted to
cork. There was no real reason to cork the beer other then I felt like it.
Corks don’t have a substantial advantage over a bottle cap besides cool factor.
Their real advantage is probably the ability to hold higher levels of carbonation
then a bottle cap. You can cork a beer a few different ways. Cantillon actually
uses wine corks and inserts them in the bottle and then caps the bottle. I
assume their reason for doing this is because they age their bottles for a year
on their side before selling them and the cork prevents the cap from rusting
and affecting the beer. The other way, which I used, is using champagne style
corks. The corks are not actually champagne corks, but are specific Belgian
beer corks, which are a different size (33mm I believe). These corks will
provide the traditional “mushroom” top and allow a cage to be placed over and
secured to the bottle. Without the cage the cork will be pushed out of the
bottle by the carbonation building up during refermentation. The downside to
these corks is that you need a special corker to insert them into the bottles.
I’ve seen people use other corkers when using Belgian corks but it seems much
more difficult. The way a champagne corker works is that it first squeezes the
cork to the size of the bottle opening, then in presses the cork into the
bottle, however, it stops short of inserting it all the way and leaves half of
the cork exposed for the cage. My plan is to attempt to cork all of my wild
ales or any beer with Brett in it to avoid bottle bombs. On to the tasting
notes
Appearance: It
pours a murky, hazy yellow-orange with a thin white head that fades rather
quickly and leaves a thin lacing over the top of the beer. The beer is super cloudy
though, with time and extra cold conditioning it might clear up a bit.
Aroma: Fruity
with hints of mango, citrus, and orange peel. There is a touch of black pepper
and floral notes. Definitely a nice funky background, although a bit phenolic.
It’s been a while since I’ve had a Love Buzz but from what I can remember it
seems pretty similar. I did use a different yeast strain for secondary
fermentation then Gabe. He uses Brett Brux-Trois, while I used C2 from BKyeast,
which probably explains some the differences.
Flavor: Similar
to the aroma, bitter orange dominates with subtle citrus notes and a hint of
black pepper. There is a small amount of acidity and some horsiness. Just like
in the aroma there is a slight phenolic bandaid flavor on the back end. Not too
distracting to me but others might think so. I’m thinking that flavor and aroma might come
from the temperature that the beer was aging. I keep it in my beer room which
is usually in the mid 70oFs. I try to keep it as cool as I can but
there is only so much I can do living in Texas.
Mouthfeel: Light carbonation
with a light body and a slightly dry lingering funky finish. I’m hoping with a
little extra time the Brett will eat a little bit more and the carbonation will
pick up some more. For my taste and for the style it’s a little low.
Overall: I think
it is very close to Love Buzz Saison. I think the carbonation is a little low
but I’m hopeful it will increase a little more with extra time. I would like to
try to eliminate the phenolics that I get. I’m assuming that if it’s coming
from the yeast that it won’t clean up over time, but you never know with Brett.
The only way to change that would be to have a cold room for storage. Maybe
some future building will be necessary. Overall I’m very pleased with it and
since I can’t buy Anchorage on a regular basis (don’t see that changing anytime
soon with our laws), this is the best I can do. Thanks to Embrace the Funk for
the interview and Gabe Fletcher for the recipe.
No comments:
Post a Comment