Although it is way over style at 48.8 IBUs, only 21.2 come from the bittering charge, so to me it does not come off as overly bitter. When I first made it, it was the first saison I had made. It came out as I had expected, thus I have remade it 1x and again in 2 weeks. The Nelson at 20 minutes adds 27.6 IBUs, but with the Nelson character added that late, I really dont perceive too much bitterness from that charge.
I guess I am wondering most about whether or not the secondary ingredients will drown out the Nelson completely, making it easy to drop it from the recipe. In that case, I would likely up the Willamette to keep the IBUs up there to offset some of the sweetness from the blackberries. The lemon balm is just something we have growing in the garden after reading about someone adding it to a saison a couple years back. I really have no strong idea about what it will bring or how powerful it will be in the finished product, hence my questions. Just trying to learn something new everyday I guess
In my experience, if you are trying to highlight a particular flavor I would back off or remove the late hops. I would likely remove the Nelson @ flameout. I am basically in the same predicament which is why I chose willamette and centennial in smaller amounts at the end of the boil than originally planned. Take my advice with a grain of salt since I have no experience with those hops or secondary ingredients. Sounds like nelson could work well with fruit and lemon balm and someone can likely chime regarding that.
Often, I want to brew a beer that achieves several things and encompasses the ideas of what should be 3 different beers but in the end (with a few exceptions) it usually ends up more muddled. For some reason, I think I can somehow brew a hoppy saison with lemon and basil but in the end I realize that is probably not a good idea...
