Funk Tank Season 2: Cider Lees Saison

Last year we used our "funk tank" to begin playing with mixed fermentation beer. Separated from the rest of the brewery, we can take more risks with beer in this tank, using microbes that could otherwise infect the other beers we produce. Our first beer to go in the tank was a saison, which we fermented on grape skins and stems from Simpson's Vinyard in Kent. The resulting beer, Saison Meunier had a lovely tart finish from the microbes, some nice grape character, a bit of tannin and some good colour pickup. 

Funk Tank experiment number 2 is to ferment a saison (yes another saison, I love saison) on the cider lees from Dudda's Tun. Again we're hoping to pick up some character from the lees, I'm expecting a fair bit of acidity from the microbes as well so we let the original saison yeast get running a bit before transferring onto the lees to try and keep the acidity in check a little bit. The beer is still bubbling away in tank, but we are hoping to package the resulting beer into Champagne bottles sometime over the summer.