Raspberry Flanders Red

My first year raspberry plants unexpectedly ended up producing enough fruit for two batches of beer (22 lb).  This will give me the opportunity to make up a third blend of Flanders Red this year (in addition to plain and cherry blends).  I've never had a straight raspberry Flanders Red but I strongly suspect that beer and fruit flavors will get along well.

For this batch I am choosing to blend two beers I haven't used yet:

Flanders Red 1.6.1.B:

• Brewed:
• 1/15/16
• Overview:
• Sixth pitch onto Roeselare yeast cake
• Cereal Mashed with Corn Grits
• Used Maltodextrine to give yeast a bit more to work on
• Primary fermented with Belgian yeast
• Soured a portion of the batch with lacto during primary
• Aged on the yeast cake for the entire period
• Aged in a bucket fermenter
• Tasting Notes:
• Earthy funk and a bit of fruit in the aroma.  Rich.
• Orange/red and a bit cloudy
• Light sourness.  Earthy funk with a little fruitiness.  Finish has some bready malt.
• Nice full flavor with a  fair bit of complexity

Flanders Red 3.1.1.A:

• Brewed:
• 1/24/16
• Overview:
• Batch fermented with a culture built up from Rodenbach Foederbier
• Cereal Mashed with Corn Grits
• Used Maltodextrine to give yeast a bit more to work on
• Primary fermented with Belgian yeast
• Soured a portion of the batch with lacto during primary
• Aged in a glass carboy
• This is half of a split batch - the other half is aging in a bucket fermenter.
• Tasting Notes:
• Funky and earthy aroma.  Dark fruit mixed in as well
• Orangish red and cloudy
• Light sourness with an interesting Brett funk (band aid like)
• Mild flavor with a fair bit of complexity.  Doesn't taste particularly like Rodenbach unfortunately.

I will be mixing together 2.5 gal of each of these beers.  Each beer brings some unique flavors to the table which I hope will be complimentary.  Both ended up with a fairly mild level of sourness which I'm thinking will leave some room for the acidity the fruit are going to impart.  I'll combine the remained beer back into the 6.1.1.B fermenter (this will get me down to 6 glass carboy of Flanders Red).

I'll be using 10 lbs of fruit for this batch.  This amount of fruit ended up giving a very strong character to the Black Raspberry Tart I brewed a couple years ago.  The raspberries have been kept frozen solid in the freezer for the last couple months - this should allow the juices to be released more easily.

I plan to give this beer 3-6 months on the raspberries to ensure all the flavors are well incorporated.

Blending Notes:

• 12/17/17
• Transferred 2.5 gal of Flanders Red 3.1.1.A to a bucket fermenter

• Transferred 2.5 gal of Flanders Red 1.6.1.B to the bucket fermenter
• Added 10 lbs of raspberries and stirred them in
• Racked the remainder of Flanders Red 3.1.1.A into the 1.6.1.B fermenter

• Set this up with a 3 piece airlock
• 5/6/18 - Bottled the beer today
• Made some Invert #3 syrup to back sweeten and carb the beer.  Used 1.75 lbs Dimarara sugar, 1/4 tsp of Citric acid and 2 cups of water.  Heated at medium low until it was 290 F and a nice red color.  Added a cup of boiling water after it had cooled down to 200 F to make sure it stayed a liquid
• Re hydrated some red star wine yeast
• The beer has a funky looking pellicle with the fruit floating on the surface

• Measured the gravity as 1.004
• Transferred to the bottling bucket with the Invert #3 and yeast.  Ended up with 5.5 gal.  Had quite a bit of the fruit flesh make it to the bottling bucket.

• Got 54 bottles of beer out of this batch.  Bottling was a bit more painful than normal due to fruit getting stuck in the bottling wand spring
• The beer is a really lovely red color with an intense raspberry aroma - it is almost candy like.  It is quite sour and, before the sugar addition, was very dry.  I think the sugar will balance the beer nicely and let the fruit come through a bit better.
• I will open a bottle of this every few days to check on carbonation levels.  Will pasteurize these when the carbonation is where I want it.
• 5/17/18 - I've had a couple bottles of this over the last few days.  They have reached a nice level of carbonation now.  Pasteurized the bottles in a 150-160 F water bath for 15 min.  I had two bottles explode on me in the process.
• 9/30/18 - Tasting Notes - I really enjoy the Raspberry character of this beer.  The complex base beer has been almost completely overwhelmed by the 10 lbs of fruit but still comes through enough to provide some balance.  The acidity a bit more intense than I would preferred but is still easily within the range that I can enjoy.  The slight sweetness from the backsweetening really helped this one a lot I think.