Cherry Flanders Red Blend #2

I picked some really nice Sour Pie cherries this year from a local orchard which will give me another opportunity to brew up some cherry beer (I have 12 lbs of fruit for this batch).  There is no better cherry beer than Flanders Red for my money.  I have really enjoyed the version I brewed last year.  I plan to make this beer yearly - thankfully I have the large stockpile of beer necessary to do this.

I wrote up my logic for putting together a plain Flanders Red blend in an earlier post.  For this Cherry Flanders Red batch I wanted to use a couple different beers.  I decided to use a couple of the more mild flavored Flanders Reds in my arsenal as the Cherries will bring some additional complexity to an otherwise unexciting beer.  I chose these two beers:

Flanders Red 1.1.1:

My oldest beer (brewed in October 2014).  Developed some nice fruity flavors but always stayed pretty mild.  Three years of aging didn't improve it much over where it was after the first few months I'd say.  The Roeselare got a lot better after this first pitch.  Here are my tasting notes:

• Funky aroma with some fruit
• Orange/red and clear
• Lightly sour with a bit of Brett character.  Light fruit flavor.
• Fairly mild in flavor with not all that much complexity

Flanders Red 1.3.2:

This beer was brewed April 2015 and was a third pitch of Roeselare.  The cake was really starting to mature nicely at this stage.  Had started to develop some sourness and put out some really lovely fruity Brett yeast character.  The brother batch to this will age until next year so I'll still have some beer of this generation to enjoy in the future.  Here are my tasting notes:

• Earthy funk dominates.  A bit of fruity character mixed in.  Has a rich smell
• Red/orange and slightly cloudy
• Light sourness.  Brett earthiness fairly assertive.  Good level of malt flavor in the finish
• Fairly mild in terms of flavor but has a nice level of complexity

These will be blended 50/50 and I'll be shooting for 6 gal of beer.  The cherries have been stored in the freezer which will allow the juice to be extracted a bit easier.  This year I have decided to add some Black Cherry Juice as well to give the fruit a bit more depth of flavor.  Will do 1 qt of that.

I'll give this beer 3-6 months on the sour cherries before bottling.

Blending Notes:

• 9/4/17:
• Transferred ~3 gal of Flanders Red 1.1.1 into a bucket fermenter
• Transferred ~3 gal of Flanders Red 1.3.2 into the fermenter
• Racked the remainder of 1.3.2 into the 1.1.1 fermenter
• Drove the beer to our new house.  I tried to keep sloshing to a minimum but there is only so much you can do when carrying a heavy bucket full of beer.
• Added the sour cherries and juice to the fermenter.  6 gal of beer plus 12 lbs of fruit plus a quart of juice proved to be too much.  I drained off a quart of the mix to make a bit of room - this was enough.

• Set it up with an airlock
• 9/16/17 -  No sign of fermentation for the first week.  After that is started bubbling a little.  With the beer so close to the brim the beer has started to get pushed up into the airlock

• 9/20/17 -  So much beer got pushed up through the airlock that it has pretty much filled the lid with a little lake of beer.  This is now forming a pellicle.  Active fermentation seems to have died down a lot so I decided to remove the lid and clean it as I use this space for my clean beers.  The fruit are floating at the top and are already pretty mangled.

• 4/1/18 - Bottled this batch today
• I've decided to backsweeten and then pasteurize this batch (as I did with Flanders Red Blend #2).  Made some invert sugar for this task using 1.75 lb Demerara sugar, 1/4 tsp citric acid, and 2 cups of water.  I heated this until it reached 290 F and was a lovely dark red color.  Let it cool down to 200 F and then added 2-3 cups of boiling water to ensure that it stayed a liquid.  This sugar has flavors of raisin, caramel, and toasted marshmallow.

• Added Red Star Premier Cuvee Wine yeast to carbonate the beer
• The cherries were shriveled and faded
• Got 6.5 gal of beer which netted me 64 bottles.  Stirred it well after adding sugar and yeast to evenly distribute

• Measured the gravity with the sugar as 1.014
• The beer has a pretty rich cherry flavor along with the complex fruity, funky, and sour flavors from the Flanders Red.  This one also has a somewhat spicy character which comes through in the aroma particularly.  The sweetness balances the fairly firm sourness nicely.
• I'll open a bottle every 2 or three days until it is carbonated to the right level
• 4/26/18 - Pasteurized the beer in 150 F water bath for 15-20 min.  I had one bottle explode during this process.  I had another that developed a leak in the cap.
• 8/19/18 - Tasting Notes - Bold flavored with a really striking complexity.  The cherries play very well in this beer and are the obvious star of the show.  The acetic character the beer developed supports the overall package in my opinion.  I also think the slight sweetness from the backsweetening makes this a much more drinkable beer.  
• 6/26/20 - 2020 Vertical Tasting:
• Aroma:  Cherry aroma most prominent followed by some vinegar.  Also get a bit of Brett character.  Some sweet caramel as well
• Appearance:  Reddish brown and fairly clear.  Pours with a thin layer of foam that settles to a thin ring that lingers for quite a while
• Flavor:  Rich cherry flavor that lingers into the finish.  Medium acidity kicks in in the middle and melds nicely with the cherry.  Get some leathery Brett in the finish.  A bit of vinegar mixed in as well as a vanilla-like flavor.  The finish also has a nice bit of sweet caramel that balances everything
• Mouthfeel:  Medium light bodied and a bit of sweetness.  Pretty easy drinking
• Overall:  Really richly flavored beer.  Cherry is the star of the show but there are quite a few other characteristics that bring a lot of complexity.  Really nice drinking beer with a pleasant balance to the finish