SMaSH Saison

I recently saw a video cast of  Drew Beechum speaking at this year's NHC about simplifying the brewing process "Brewing on the Ones" .  In the video he speaks about SMaSH beers, which are Single Malt and Single Hop Beers, this got me thinking. I had bunch of 2-Row on hand and I just got some new varieties of hops that I wanted to try out (Motueka, Riwaka and HBC324 Experimental). I also recently stocked up on some new yeast strains and some that I wanted to use again. I wanted to make a saison using White Labs new Saison III strain, a strain I first tried at Drew Beechum's Saison for Every Season lecture at last years NHC. I was one of the people who emailed White Labs about releasing this strain, at last years NHC is was still an experimental and unreleased strain. I wanted to keep the beer simple so I could see how the Motueka hops and the Saison III strain would act. This strain is spicy and fruity like a traditional saison strain, but it also has this wonderful tartness that makes it  even more refreshing.  I also wanted to keep the beer lower in alcohol. The recipe wasn't a true SMaSH beer because I did us some flaked oats to add a slight amount of body and mouthfeel since I was only using 2-Row. I also boiled the first runnings for about 10 minutes to try and get some extra color and taste since 2-Row and Oats were the only malts.

Recipe: US 2-Row, Flaked Oats, Motueka Hops @60, @30 and @0. WLP Saison III (Platinum Strain).