Last April, I was fortunate to travel to Austin, Texas to visit Jester King Brewery. Despite acquiring various Jester King beers over the years, my visit to the brewery was inspiring. I was awestruck by the serene landscape, delicious pizza, and world class beers. But of all the Jester King beers, it was Le Petit Prince, a 2.9% table beer, that captivated me most.
Table beers are less about ingredients and more about intention. These little beers are “easier to enjoy than define.” The Le Petit Prince homebrew recipe is refreshingly simple and was the inspiration behind Mountain Saison #3. My recipe below was brewed to “double strength” then diluted with sterile water to achieve 5 gal of 3.0% ABV and 28 IBU beer.
Malt / Mash
Like Jester King, I used a combination of 78% pale malt and 22% wheat malt for Mountain Saison #3. I selected Mecca Grade Estate Malt‘s Gateway Wind Malt for its rustic flavor and Wickiup Red Wheat Malt for its tremendous protein content. Both malts will contribute to the body of the beer despite its low alcohol. I implemented a step mash of 130°F – 140°F – 150°F – 168°F over 90 minutes for high fermentability.
Hops / Boil
I mimicked Le Petit Prince’s hop regimen using Yakima Valley Hops Willamette hops exclusively. The concentrated beer was bittered to 55 IBUs before being diluted to 28 in the fermentor. I boiled 1.58 oz of Willamette for 60 minutes and another 0.5 oz for 10 minutes. 1 oz was added during the 185°F whirlpool for 15 minutes. Mountain Saison #3 was also dry hopped with 4 oz of Willamette total.
Yeast / Fermentation
I fermented with my foraged yeast strain from Bootleg Biology at ambient temperature (~70°F). After approximately one week, I plan to transfer 1/3 of the beer onto the “spent” apricot from Mountain Sour #5 and 1/3 of the beer onto the “spent” grapefruit from Mountain Seltzer #1. The remaining 1/3 will remain as-is. It will take approximately two weeks for Mountain Saison #3 to reach terminal gravity, whereupon I will force carbonate to 3.0 volumes before packaging into cans.
Water
I used the Farmhouse Ales saison water profile for Mountain Saison #3 – including the dilution water. The target profile is 52 ppm calcium, 17 ppm magnesium, 35 ppm sodium, 20 ppm chloride, 107 ppm sulfate and 165 ppm bicarbonate.
Recipe
Mountain Saison #3 recipe can be found here: https://share.brewfather.app/kG7Fb51v3h7hUD