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Sunday, June 3, 2018

Raspberry Sour Blonde (2018)

Last year I started a new raspberry bed with 60 plants. These were surprisingly productive and I got 22 lbs of fruit. This has given me the opportunity to make one of my favorite styles of beer - a Framboise.

I'll be using 12 lbs of fruit with a blend of 5 gal of the Sour Blonde Ale I've been brewing over the last 3+ years.  I used Raspberries to good effect in a Raspberry Flanders Red using the other 10 lbs of fruit.  10 lbs of fruit produced a really lovely and profound Raspberry flavor for me in that beer.

For the blend I'll be shooting for a complex but somewhat mild flavored beer in order to really let the raspberries shine.  I have 10 mature batches of beer to choose from.  I did a tasting last week to help determine which beers to use.  During this blending session I'll also be making a Plain Blend and a Cherry Blend which I'll track in separate posts.

I have decided to use the following beers in this blend:
  • 1/2 (2.5 gal) from Fermenter #1:
    • Beers:
    • Overview:
      • First pitch of Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
      • Left to cool outside over night to let it capture some wild yeast
      • Grainbill of 2/3 pilsner and 1/3 flaked wheat
      • 1 oz of hops
      • Topped off with 1.25 gal of 1.020 (pilsner and raw wheat) beer which had been primaried with a blend of brewers yeast and lacto
    • Tasting Notes:
  • Light earthy aroma along with a subtle fruity ester.
  • Light gold in color. Fairly clear.
  • A bit of fruit with some earthy flavor. Finishes with a slight tartness. Get a hint of bready malt on the finish.
  • Medium light bodied with a slight sweetness. Drinks very smoothly
  • Pretty mild in terms of flavor and aroma but has some complexity of flavor that is pleasant.

  • 1/5 (1 gal) from Fermenter #2:
    • Beers:
    • Overview:
      • Second pitch of Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
      • Left to cool outside over night to let it capture some wild yeast
      • Grainbill of 2/3 pilsner and 1/3 flaked wheat
      • 1 oz of hops
      • Topped off with 1 gal of 1.020 (pilsner and raw wheat) beer which had been primaried with a blend of brewers yeast and lacto
    • Tasting Notes:
      • Pungent earthy and cheesy aroma to the beer. Maybe a bit of overripe fruit. Quite musty as well.
      • Light gold and clear - a few pellicle chunks floating in it.
      • Fruity with a light tartness in the finish. Has some earthy brett notes. I detect a bit of sulfur. Also get a bit of bread flavor in the finish on this one.
      • Medium-light bodied a bit of sweetness to it. A bit of prickling acidity in the mouthfeel. Drinkable beer.
      • Some nice flavors and aromas with pretty good complexity. I quite like this one

  • 1/5 (1 gal) from Fermenter #4:
    • Beers:
    • Overview:
      • Fourth pitch of Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
      • Grainbill of 2/3 pilsner and 1/3 flaked wheat
      • Moved to a lower AA hop
      • Did a normal mash this time
      • Topped off with 0.5 gal of 1.020 (pilsner and raw wheat) beer which had been primaried with a blend of brewers yeast and lacto
    • Tasting Notes:
      • Cider and a bit of earthness in the aroma
      • Light gold and a bit hazy
      • Light sourness with a bit of sulfur. Also has a mineral sort of flavor to it. Also has a bit of a cider like character
      • Light bodied and pretty dry. Smooth drinking
      • Mild flavors with not a whole lot of complexity

  • 1/10 (0.5 gal) from Fermenter #7:
    • Beers:
    • Overview:
      • Primaried with Belgian yeast
      • Fifth pitch of Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
      • Added 1 gal of wort soured with lacto
      • Changed the malt bill to 2/3 pilsner 1/3 raw wheat
      • Used a sort of cereal mash on the raw wheat. Added this right before sparging to get a starchy worth
      • Used Maltodextrine to increase food for bacteria
      • No hops in this batch
      • Aged on 1 oz of oak
      • Beer has aged in a bucket fermenter
      • Added 1 gal of 1.020 beer fermented with lacto and Belgian yeast to hopefully give the microbes a bit more to chew on
    • Tasting Notes:
      • Strong funky and earthy aroma. Quite musty actually. Has kind of an overripe fruit smell. Get a bit of malt coming through faintly.
      • Orange and quite cloudy
      • Fruity with a pretty pronounced sourness. Fruit is overripe peach maybe. Finishes with quite a bit of bready malt. There is a bit of funk mixed in
      • Medium-light bodied and pretty dry. The acidity in the beer is prickling
      • Bold flavor and a pretty satisfying sourness. The malt in the finish is interesting but the beer isn't all that complex really.

These were all fairly mild beers that had some nice Brett complexity but not a lot of sourness.  I think a beer that is too strongly sour would clash a bit with the Raspberries.



I'll let this beer age on the Raspberries for about 2 months before bottling.  Depending on how dry it seems I may decide to back sweeten the beer slightly with some light Invert Syrup and then pasteurize.

Blending Notes:
  • 6/3/18 - Blending Day:
    • Blended the four beer
    • Added 12.2 lbs of raspberries

  • 12/28/18 - Bottled today with 6 oz of priming sugar and Red Star White Wine Yeast (Cote des Blanc).  Collected about 6 gal of beer off the fruit which netted me 57 12 oz bottles.  It has an intense raspberry aroma and a really nice flavor.

  • 6/30/19 - Tasting Notes - This is very intensely flavored beer with a lot going on to bring complexity.  It is very dry and very tart which hurts the drinkability quite a bit.  I think a bit more residual sweetness would have helped the balance of the beer a lot.  I'll plan on back sweetening the batch next year.
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