Grisette has become a defining element of this blog since writing my first post on the topic (
What is Grisette) about a year ago. This post marked the start of seriously focusing on digging up historic sources to understand what grisette was. At that time I had been watching pro brewers around me and elsewhere in North America applying the name to wide range of beers without any real understanding of that it meant. This is because basically nobody knew what it meant with any detail. People had ideas, myself included, but at best they were all based on a couple pages of information in modern English-language sources. I don't mean to downplay the value of those sources, which focus on other beers, as they present great info. And they played a prominent role in keeping grisette alive/in the minds of brewers. Many of us wouldn't have heard of grisette without those books and I've even talked to a European professional brewer who learned of the style through Farmhouse Ales by Markowski. But for a more full understanding, excepting the information from those who drank historic grisettes such as Leon Voisin of Brasserie Voisin as quoted in Farmhouse Ales, the information in these texts all came from historic Belgian sources that are out there somewhere. So I wanted to dig those up for more details.
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| What it looks like when I try to organize thoughts on grisette. |
This research on grisette also took me to 1800s and 1900s Belgian primary and secondary sources on other historic beers, which has now become a main focus of this blog. I expect to move more focus in those directions and let my mental organization of thoughts on grisette slip a bit. With grisette, for blog posts and especially for presentations/interviews, I would spend a lot of time working to build the information I had into an organized structure. With a recent presentation in Vancouver and one more grisette event coming up - a podcast/radio recording - I am going through this again. And I decided I should use the opportunity to transfer the same organization to the blog.
My first post on the topic was mostly an organization of what info there already was available in English, including the conflicting pieces of info, and a beginning analysis of labels. This post has by far been the blog's most successful and I think it did a good job of setting me up for what was to come with the historic sources. But the real substance of my research came in later posts and presentations. Unfortunately those posts have seen many fewer reads and not all the presentations are available to everyone, so I think some of the later work I've done to update and expand upon what grisette was may be lost to many. Similarly, the
recipe I posted previously was brewed before I all of the more serious research (as was mentioned in that recipe post with some caveats). I still feel that recipe fairly accurately could produce a grisette, but I think you could also make a more "grisette-y" recipe. I gave a more grisette-focused recipe in my talks here and there including my NHC presentation, but again, this is not available to everyone. So I'd like to update that first post and recipe with the subsequent research I've done, in a more clear, concise and universally accessible way.
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| A lost grisette - label form Jacques Triffin. |
I expect there could be more posts on grisette to come for this blog, and I'll certainly keep looking for info on the style, but with less focus than before. This summary will serve as a brief overview of what I know now before I shift focus to other topics. Much like the previous posts, this info is built on what I have seen and extrapolating from there, so parts of this understanding may be refined/changed as I learn more. So here it is: What is Grisette, part II. This might read a little choppy as I'm trying to keep it pretty short and quick. If you are interested in more information, these other posts from the blog and recordings of interviews/presentations (below) go into the information in more detail. These will also be linked again in the rapid fire-style list of grisette characteristics below where they are relevant.
Grisette Fundamentals
What: A fairly clear pale wheat beer that was a refreshing drink in the summertime. The beer was generally but not always lower strength. There were multiple
classes of grisette. Ordinary grisettes were fundamentally designed to not be aged. There were aged versions of girsette that changed some of the fundamental structure to benefit aging, but in general it is not a beer for aging, both in recipe formulation and practice.
Based on the hopping rates and lack of aging as well as the historical descriptions, I don't think grisette would have been an acidic beer. Some examples of certain classes from some producers may have had some, but on the whole it seems from the record, including descriptions of the beer, that grisette was not an acidic beer. Multiple texts make a point of noting that the brewers who know how to make grisette were few and didn't like to talk about how they make it, so there isn't a lot of info.
Where: Grisette comes from the Hainaut province of Belgium, and specifically the earlier info I've seen comes form Scheldt and Dender river areas. Bigger cities in the Hainaut province like Charleroi and Tournai had grisette brewers at one point, as well as many smaller towns in the province.
When: I believe grisette started in the 1700s. The earliest source I have seen is from 1812, which mentions a brewery that has established itself via it's grisettes. This brewery was distributing the beer, at least somewhat locally if not also exporting, suggesting: a) they weren't small, b) they had been making grisette for a while, and c) people liked to drink it.
Ingredients
Hops:
This post goes into more detail on this. Belgian (likely Belgian landrace hops, which are no longer in much production) were probably generally used. Likely coming from the Hainaut province, though possibly from Aalst or Poperinge for the bigger breweries/those who could afford these hops. Some brewers, especially those making higher classes of grisette, would also have used imported hops at times such as German (Hallertau) Czech hops (Saaz) and English hops (East Kent Goldings). Some general historic sources of the time suggest that German hops were not always thought to be the preferred choice for imported hops. On the order of 3-4 g/l for an ordinary grisette is the right sort of level. Hopping was generally balanced toward bitterness rather than flavor.
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With Blegian landrace hops no longer around much, I used Czech Saaz.
English hops would also have been a historically accurate choice. |
The beer may also have been dry hopped by some producers. If so, this was probably with a fairly
low dose (<1 g/l) and with better quality hops. So a producer, at least one who could do so, would have favored Czech or English hops for this. Dry hopping would have been done at storage/serving temps after fermentation, probably with a reasonable contact time.
Malt: Grisette was a wheat beer and the wheat was malted. I have seen no mention of grains other than wheat and barley in the historic grisette literature. I think one could possibly add some other grains to their beer, though the more those other components express themselves in the finished beer, the less closely it would follow historic grisette. The breakdown given in Pelset's 1874 text, the one source that goes into detail on the beer, is to use roughly 88% malted barley (spring 6 row) and 12% malted wheat. The wheat was more of a chitted wheat with very little germination time and the kilning temperatures were very low. Not far away from wind dried malt. Other sources mention that the barley would have been a winter 6 row. Given the nature of the beer, a spring 6 row is probably better.
Yeast: In short, I have no clear answer. I think one of the terms used to describe yeast character for this beer, both by me and other sources, can be confusing - 'clean'. A clean yeast profile can refer to a more flavor-neutral yeast in
Saccharomyces comparisons (something toward a lager or American ale strain compared to a more expressive yeast like many Belgian strains, especially saison yeasts). Alternatively, clean can be used to describe pure
Saccharomyces beers from brett beers.
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| Grisette wort ready for fermentation. |
There are a couple things about grisette yeast/fermentation that I am sure of. 1) They were ales. 2) Based on this, for most of their history they would have been mixed-culture beers. 3) The average grisette was not an aged beer. Therefore this mixed culture wouldn't get a chance to express itself much.
I find no clear meaning to 'clean' as it refers to grisette. They certainly would have been 'cleaner' than saisons for most of their shared history because grisette wasn't generally aged enough for the mixed culture to express itself while saison was an aged beer. So a grisette that comes across as a
Saccharomyces only beer, or perhaps with just a hint of additional yeast or bacteria, is definitely cleaner than historic saison, which was a beer that often could have had a final flavor profile with quite a bit in common with lambic.
So based on what I have, I think one could make a grisette with a saison yeast that is 'clean' in the sense of not having any or much expression of brett or bacteria as well as one with a yeast that is 'clean' in the sense of less
Saccharomyces expression than a saison yeast. I think there is a case for both to have some accuracy/validity and I don't feel I can recommend one over the other.
For my personal tastes, I'll lean toward the former generally. I'll also add these two bits that support a saison or saison-like yeast. Firstly, in Farmhouse Ales, Markowski states that oral accounts from those who drank grisette describe the beers as saison-like. And secondly, the modern Belgian (and French) brewers who know beer history use saison yeast when when they make grisettes. They make these beers rather irregularly, but De La Senne has been known to make some (including one with Thiriez).
A recipe:
This recipe reflects historic research but it is shifted towards modern ingredients (no landrace Belgian hops, and also some grain/malt substitutions that I think are reasonable) and also slightly by my personal tastes (mostly when it comes to hopping). So it is a 'modernized' grisette recipe. I am adding more finishing hops than I think would have been used in historic grisette. I am also not using enough bittering hops, but that is probably partly balanced out by hop quality. I could post here what is listed in historic texts for recipes but they are incomplete and I haven't brewed exactly what is listed. And based on how much ingredients have changed between then and now, I'm not sure that such a recipe would have much value. Another caveat that I bring up regularly when talking about historic beers is that they are heterogeneous entities within time across different producers as well as through time. There is not one absolute answer for what a given beer was. And finally, I'm not comfortable putting a recipe up here that I haven't brewed in case it is way off when using modern ingredients. But if you really want that and enough people hassle me for it then perhaps I could be convinced to do that.
So here is a recipe I think accurately reflects much of historic grisette with some small exchanges to bring it into the modern world. If one were to 'modernize' grisette, I think it would modernize in this direction. If you wanted to make this recipe more like historic grisette, you could drop the late hopping rate (or eliminate late hops altogether) and increase the bittering hops. The wheat is also higher than the ~12% listed in Pelset.
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| Malt #47 during testing and selection at Doehnel Floor Malting. |
Target OG: Around 1.034
FG: Around 1.006, depending on yeast, grist, and mashing
ABV: 3.5-4%
Calculated IBU: ~30
SRM: Around 3
Grist: For a base I am using a locally sourced and somewhat unique malt. I'm sorry this isn't especially helpful for those looking to use the same, but here is some reasoning for why I choose it and some ideas for substitutions. I am choosing it for three main reasons: 1) it is a good malt/I like the way it tastes, 2) it is local, and 3) I think that while it is a 2 row rather than a 6 row, in certain respects it is more similar to historic malts than many modern malts. It is a feed variety, so not malting specific. It has a high amount of husk material per kernel. This is clear when chewing on the grains, but can also be noticed from holding and breaking kernels. The protein is above typical British malt levels and in the range of/on the higher end of Continental European malts. This specific malt is also a bit undermodified and has a low friability and high B-glucans. It is the same color range as a continental European pils malt.
If you are looking for something unique/with these sorts of specifications, check to see if you have a local/somewhat local craft maltster. These maltsters are more likely to be using less typical grains and/or make more unique products. If you wanted to use a more major commercial malt, you could source a commercial 6 row pils from some suppliers. Otherwise a continental European 2 row pils would still be fine and make a good beer. Generally speaking we won't be getting exactly up to historic grisette on the raw ingredient end so my philosophy here is to not stress much about it and choose ingredients with intention to either make the best beer, or approach historic beer (possibly both) depending on your tastes and goals.
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| Racking the beer onto dry hops. |
79% Doehnel Floor Malting #47 - An undermodified spring 2 Row feed barley malt (variety - Austenson).
14% Malted wheat (I used N American white wheat malt, but European wheat malt might be a better choice if you have access to it).
7% Flaked wheat - these two are used to try to emulate a chitted wheat. If you have chitted wheat you can replace both wheats here with that.
Hops: Using Saaz would probably not have been common at many standard historic grisette breweries, though they may have been used in higher-class grisettes. As mentioned, to make this more historically accurate you can shift the hops earlier in the boil. Additionally with Czech hops, depending on the brewing season (see the
hopping grisette post) and the
category of grisette, the amount may be a bit lower. If you want to follow Pelset's info more closely, perhaps you could do ~3 g/l Saaz to bitter and no finishing hops. But I'm not sure that would make the sort of beer I want and I haven't tried it yet. So here's what I do:
2 g/l Czech Saaz boiled for 60 minutes (targeting ~18 IBU)
2 g/l Czech Saaz boiled for 15 minutes (targeting ~9 IBU)
Dry hop (optional): 0.5 g/l Styrian Golding for ~5 days. This is quite noticeable in the finished beer and you could experiment with going lower.
Mash: This is informed by the grains I am using, historic Belgian mashing in general, specific grisette mashing, and modern Belgian mashing. I don't have a specific and complete mashing profile for historic grisette at the moment.
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My B-glucan rest.
This is very thick to account for additional infusions to come. |
-Dough in in the B-glucan range (something like 108-113 F / 42.2-45 C), 10 min rest
-Raise to a protein rest by infusion (something like 125-131 F / 52-55 C), 15 min rest
-Raise to saccharification by infusion (something like 149 F / 65 C), 50 min rest
-A Belgian brewer would probably then do a high saccharification step around 162 F / 72 C or so (possibly in conjunction with a first sacch step being shorter than I did) and/or a mash out close to denaturing enzymes but probably at a low enough temp where you would still get some conversion for a bit. I leave it here and don't do a mash out.
Boil:
90 minutes. Historically this could have been even longer. Probably not much shorter, and more likely longer than shorter.
Yeast and Fermentation:
The fermentation potential (to use a saison yeast or not) is discussed above and I have discussed aspects of it in my
interview with Basic Brewing Radio, my
AHA HomebrewCon talk, and this quick interview with Basic Brewing Radio at HomebrewCon (see
this FB post).
Recently I have been using the Thiriez yeast, cultured from a bottle, and I like it quite a bit. Otherwise I am partial to a blend of 3711/3724 (favoring the 3724) if you want to go in more saison yeast-driven route. If you don't want to go this way, I like Wyeast 3787 fermented cool for beers of this nature. Those are just some ideas, and you should use either your favorite saison yeast or blend, or your favorite more neutral Belgian ale yeast.
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| A head-to-head tasting of 3 different grisette homebrews. |
With Thiriez yeast I pitch around 68 F / 20 C and raise to 72-74
F / 22.2-23.3
C over the first 3-4 days. I let a warm primary go for 5-7 days and then I let it return to room temp (for me this is about 64-66
F / 17.8-18.9
C) for 5-6 days. If I am dry hopping I rack on to the dry hops around day 5-6 and I give about 5-6 days of contact time on the hops at room temperature. I am generally bottling at 10-14 days. I'll let bottles condition for a couple weeks before drinking them.
You might find a different timeline and temperature range is best based on your yeast choice, but overall grisette is generally not a beer designed for age and something like 3-4 weeks grain to glass (at least when you start drinking it) is probably not far off what would have been done. Some grisettes were aged longer and some may have been consumed even sooner, so you can play around with this timeline a bit. But for a young/ordinary grisette I would try keep the grain to glass time pretty quick.
So there's a rundown for now, balancing being quick with being thorough. I suppose now all that's left is for you to take this info and brew your own version, following more or less closely depending on your taste preferences and goals. And then drink it. Cheers!
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| My latest batch of grisette following this recipe. |
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| De La Senne / Thiriez Birthday Session grisette. |
