There are literally dozens of styles of Belgian beers and many of them should not have a candy sweetness at all. While there are some styles that come off malty, many Belgian beers are actually quite dry. While some do have banana and clove phenols, this is more a characteristic of a German hefeweizen than most Belgian beer styles.

“Thanks to low acidity, the lees create a cloudy appearance in the liquid”

Pectins and the flocculation of a particular yeast has much more to do with a cloudy appearance than acidity.

“Wit’s Up from Citizen Cider is made with Beligan-style saison yeast often used to make wit beers.”

Wit’s Up is made with a Belgian witbier yeast, not a Belgian Saison yeast. Two quite different styles of beer and two different yeasts.

I think one main misconception about using ale yeasts in cider is that it somehow will taste like beer. While I’m not a fan of many beer yeasts for cider (I much prefer the many fruit forward white wine yeasts out there) there are some beer yeasts that can make phenomenal ciders. You can look to many of Cider Creek Hard Cider’s offerings to see the popularity of Belgian Saison yeasts in particular.

Another misconception that I tend to see regarding using POF+ ale strains (like saison and witbier strains) is that people expect to get lots of the phenols associated with these strains (clove, pepper, etc). Unfortunately, this simply isn’t the case. The precursor to these phenols is ferulic acid, and apples simply don’t contain enough ferulic acid, if any at all, for these phenols to form above threshold. Instead, where many of these yeasts shine is in the ester department.

There are literally dozens of styles of Belgian beers and many of them should not have a candy sweetness at all. While there are some style that come of malty, many Belgian beers are actually quite dry. While some do have banana and clove phenols, this is more a characteristic of a German hefeweizen than most Belgian beer styles.

“Thanks to low acidity, the lees create a cloudy appearance in the liquid”

Pectins and the flocculation of a particular yeast has much more to do with a cloudy appearance than acidity.

“Wit’s Up from Citizen Cider is made with Beligan-style saison yeast often used to make wit beers.”

Wit’s Up is made with a Belgian witbier yeast, not a Belgian Saison yeast. Two quite different styles of beer and two different yeasts.

I think one main misconception about using ale yeasts in cider is that it somehow will taste like beer. While I’m not a fan of many beer yeasts for cider (I much prefer many fruity wine yeasts) there are some beet yeasts that can make phenomenal ciders. You can look to many of Cider Creek Hard Cider’s offerings to see the popularity of Belgian Saison yeasts in particular.

Another misconception that I tend to see regarding using POF+ ale strains (like saison and witbier strains) is that people expect to get lots of the phenols associated with these strains (clove, pepper, etc). Unfortunately, this simply isn’t the case. The precursor to these phenols is ferulic acid, and apples simply don’t contain enough ferulic acid, if any at all, for these phenols to form above threshold. Instead, where many of these yeasts shine is in the ester department.