For the last three summers, Slip Rose Strawberry Saison has been a popular summer beer among our loyal followers. Many people that didn't like fruit beers found that they were fans of the saison because the strawberry flavor was so subtle. However, the subtlety of the strawberry flavor threw off a lot of first time buyers and having the word "strawberry" in the title scared off a lot of beer drinkers who refused to try fruit beers. As a result, Slip Rose never managed to achieve the level of success that our new seasonals have enjoyed. We realized that it was time to move on from Slip Rose as our main summer seasonal. We replaced it this year with our Wheat with Peach berliner weisse. Despite the new beer though, we wanted to give Slip Rose another shot. Yesterday, we brewed 15 barrels of an updated recipe which will make the beer quite different from what it was in the past.
It is a fairly unique situation to be able to brew a smaller batch of an old recipe and say "If I were to do it again, this is how it would be done." But that is essentially what we are doing now. We have gone back to the drawing board and given the Slip Rose recipe a major overhaul. We narrowed down what we believed to be areas that needed improvement. In addition to the strawberry flavor being too subtle, being a saison, Slip Rose used a French Saison yeast strain which left the beer extremely dry. There was no residual sweetness to support the flavor of the strawberry. Additionally, the beer left a little bit of a harsh mouthfeel on the back of the tongue.
To address these issues, we have made several changes. Firstly, we were previously using a fresh strawberry concentrate. We have now made the switch to a strawberry puree. That first little change would bring strawberry flavor out more on its own, but in addition to that, we have also bumped up the usage rate. The new Slip Rose recipe will now use 1.5 lbs of strawberry puree per gallon of beer... That is close to 700 lbs of strawberry puree for our small batch of beer.
Secondly, to address the mouthfeel issue, we decided to change out about 1/3 of the malted barley for wheat. Wheat will provide a softer, fluffy mouthfeel and should also increase head retention, body, and drinkability.
Lastly, the biggest change we have made is our yeast selection. We decided to utilize our house Kolsch yeast for this new recipe. The French Saison yeast that we used to use was one of the most efficient yeast strains I have ever used for fermenting high molecular chains of sugar. The beer was very dry, and for my tastes, a little too phenolic. The big thing that seems to be working with our customers lately has been cleaner fermentations and crisper, more "sessionable" beers. Using our house Kolsch yeast, the phenols will not be present and the yeast strain will leave some higher molecular sugars to provide body for the beer. In addition, the Kolsch yeast provides a pleasantly tart ester profile and a crisp, clean finish.
Since Slip Rose was only brewed as a 15 barrel batch, the plan for this year is to keep it as a draft only option in select locations. However, I am looking forward to seeing all your reviews on BeerAdvocate and Untappd!
