Biere de garde

[sven945]

I've only tried one or two of these beers, but I've been wanting to try brewing one for a while. My homebrew shop got some WLP072 French Ale yeast in, so I thought this was a good time! I've got no cold storage, so I'm perhaps stretching the name. Perhaps I should add inverted commas around the "garde" bit.

Yeast has been on the stirplate since last night which, touch wood, seems to be working fine. Just started mashing now, hoping for 12 litres in the FV.

Grain bill is

2kg lager malt
1kg Munich
0.2kg aromatic
0.25kg sugar in the boil

Hops
25g Hallertauer Mittelfruh (2.8% AA) fwh
20g Hallertauer Mittelfruh at 20 minutes

Aiming for 21 IBUs, with an OG of 1063.

I've mashed at about 67ºC. My last few brews have been a bit dry (using different yeasts) so I've mashed slightly higher than the style might expect. I realised I find it difficult to get a consistent temperature reading in my mash tun (20 litre pot) so that might be part of it. I stirred it thoroughly for a few minutes and the highest temperature I got was 67ºC anyway.

Slowly heating up the spargewater as it's mashing right now.

 

[sven945]

Misjudged my volumes (as usual) so ended up with not far off my full 20l boiling. I'm giving it a 2 hour boil to reduce it, which isn't a bad thing.

 

[serum]

Sounds like a decent recipe for that style. High mash temp will work as you need a fair bit of body.

 

[chthon]

"Bière de garde" is just called like that because one should be able to keep it without cold storage. Technically, the hypothesis is that this beer in the 19th century had also a brett fermentation, but not deliberately. Modern bière de garde is relatively high in alcohol to make it possible to keep it better. Saison, the Belgian variant should be high in hops to keep it through the winter and spring into the summer. But due to that, it could (can) be lower in alcohol. There is here also the possibility that in the 19th century there was some brett possible.

 

[sven945]

"Bière de garde" is just called like that because one should be able to keep it without cold storage.

Most things that I've read seem to say that a long period of storage (usually at low temperatures) is part of the style. Either way, I can't do it and I'm not enormously bothered about sticking to authentic styles. I suppose I want something strong and malty, something a little bit different. I suspect I'll get that whatever happens!


Turns out I didn't need the extended boil (I always forget that bags of hops will absorb wort), and I had to water it down with boiled water. No bad thing, and I ended up with an OG of 1060. I pitched last night at 18ºC and it's sat in a full bath to try and keep the temperature in check.

 

[chthon]

The original cold storage just being winter in the barn. You don't have a garage or a garden shed?

 

[sven945]

The original cold storage just being winter in the barn. You don't have a garage or a garden shed?

Nope, brewing in my pokey two bedroom flat. I'll just keep them in the warm as usual, I'm sure it'll be fine.

 

[serum]

The original cold storage just being winter in the barn. You don't have a garage or a garden shed?

I thought they cellared them?

 

[sven945]

I'm sure I read somewhere about storage in cool caves too. But that depends on the geography of the place. Also my flat doesn't have any caves either.

 

[sven945]

Urgh, it got warm today. I managed to keep it around 18° but it had got up to 21° by the time I got home. I'm trying to lower it down now with a damp tshirt.

I do wish I had space for a brew fridge...

(Or a cave)

 

[serum]

French ale can take a bit more heat than a lot of the other yeasts that are suitable for this style so hopefully you'll be OK. I've had decent results sitting it in a big builders bucket full of water and with a damp T shirt over it but I usually do this style in the spring before it gets too hot.

I've just got my brew fridge going so now I can do BdG all year which I'm very happy about.

 

[sven945]

Great, that's a reassurance. It's still within the limits of what the rating is for this yeast to ferment clean. It's down to 20° overnight so I'm trying to keep it at that. I might try and get a bigger bucket to try and minimise temperature swings. I'd probably have to put my inkbird probe in my FV to get an accurate temperature (at the moment it's taped to the outside under a sponge to insulate it from the outside) which is surprisingly accurate whenever I've taken temperature readings from inside the FV).

I overbuild the starter and I've harvested 100bn cells and I'm already planning something smaller that I want to try and ferment at about 23° to see how fruity it can get.

 

[sven945]

Had a taste (because I'm impatient) and took a sample. It's down to 1.010 after five days, but it tastes sweet, presumably from the Munich (not sure if it's too sweet? But it'll probably come down some points in the next week). Barely anything from the hops, which is expected I suppose. I'll make sure I carbonate heavily to give it some more character.

 

[serum]

It'll taste a lot sweeter early on due to low bitterness but once it clears it'll dry out. You don't really want it lower than 1.010 for this style as it needs some body left.

 

[sven945]

Bottled today, with gravity stable at 1.010 so ABV of 6.6%, to about 2.7 volumes. Looking forward to trying this, but I'll try and keep hold of them (you know, the garde part of the name) for a while. Might be a nice one for the autumn.