Spiced Flanders Red

With it's bold fruity flavors and aroma the Flanders Red style of beer is sufficiently interesting without any help but I was thinking it might be fun to try adding some additional spices and flavorings as an experiment given that I have quite a bit of beer to play with.  Flanders Red are often compared with wine due to the acidity and fruitiness although they don't taste particularly wine like.  With their sweet and sour components one might argue that their most close relative (outside of other beer of course) might be soda.  This idea got me thinking about how some of the flavors in a Flanders Red have similar components in Coca-Cola Classic - citrus, caramel, and vanilla.  Based on this, I've decided to spice this beer using components from the original Coke.

The Wikipedia article's original "John Pemberton" recipe seemed like a good place to start - I am using this as a basis for my spicing.  Coke is made using essential oils for flavoring.  I was thinking it would be more fun to use real fruit and spices for the beer.  I decided to make a tincture using the following ingredients:  Orange zest, lime zest, lemon zest, cinnamon sticks, ground nutmeg, ground coriander, bourbon vanilla bean, and vodka

I've done a bit of playing around with spicing beers in the past:  a Witbier with orange zest & coriander, a Berliner Weisse with grapefruit zest, a mead with oranges, cinnamon, & cloves, and a Tripel with orange zest, coriander, & star anise.  Some of these have been very subtle in flavor while others pack a pretty strong punch.  For this beer I'm thinking I'd like a fairly obvious flavor contribution from the spices.  It is not easy to choose the right amount to get the job done so I'll be doing two tinctures. I'll add one at the start and then sample after a few months.  If the beer isn't flavored enough I'll add the second.  Each tincture will be composed as follows:

• Zest of 4 oranges
• Zest of 1 lime
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 6 cinnamon sticks
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 bourbon vanilla bean
• 1 cup of vodka

It's difficult to say how closely these ratios relate to the original coke formulation but the aroma of the tincture is definitely fairly close to coke in aroma.

For the beers I'll be putting together a blend using the 12 fermenters of beer I performed a tasting on several weeks ago.  I think a boldly flavored base beer with a nice level of complexity and medium sourness would be good starting point for this one in order to balance with the spices.  This does run the risk of clashing with the spices but I am willing to accept that possibility.  This will be a 6 gallon batch.

I have chosen the following beers to make up this blend:

• Fermenter #4:
• Tasting Notes:

• Aroma: Fruity with a bit of earthy brett character. Also has a mineral aroma
• Appearance: Brownish red and pretty clear
• Flavor: Very light sourness. Has a yogurt like lacto character. The finish has an interesting funky, fruity and earthy flavor
• Mouthfeel: More substantial than I'd expect from one of these beers - Medium bodied.
• Overall: Medium level of flavor but has a nice variety of things going on that give it a good amount of complexity
• Volume:
• 1 gal
• Fermenter #6:
• Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:  Earthy funk and overripe fruit.  Fairly pungent
• Appearance:  Red and very clear
• Flavor:  Lightly sour with fruit and earthy and leathery brett character.  Fruit lingers into the finish nicely
• Mouthfeel:  Pretty smooth drinking - only a slight prickle
• Overall:  Pretty boldly flavored with a nice complexity
• Volume:
• 1 gal
• Fermenter #7:
• Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:  Fruity with some earthy and leathery funk
• Appearance: Dark orange and clear
• Flavor:  Medium sourness with a really lovely fruity flavor (tropical fruit kind of flavor).  Earthy brett and some malt come through in the finish
• Mouthfeel:  Pretty smooth - slight pickling of acidity
• Overall:  Has a bold and very pleasant flavor along with some nice complexity.  This is one of the best.
• Volume:
• 1 gal
• Fermenter #11:
• Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:  Fruity with a slight earthy brett character.  Also get a wine like aroma
• Appearance:  Dark Orange and pretty clear
• Flavor:  No sourness has developed.  Has a bit of a bitter flavor in the finish which I think is Brett - kind of like the bitterness from a grapefruit or pineapple.  Has a fairly pungent overripe fruit flavor as well
• Mouthfeel:  Medium bodied and pretty smooth
• Overall:  Pretty bold flavors and pretty complex.  Has come interesting things going on that none of the other beers do.  I think this will make an interesting blending component
• Volume:
• 1 gal
• Fermenter #12:
• Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:  Earthy and leathery brett character along with some fruit.  May get a bit of acetic acid from it as well
• Appearance:  Dark Orange/Red and pretty clear
• Flavor:  Slightly sour and very fruity.  Has a slight funk in the finish along with some bready malt.  Maybe a slight vinegar in the flavor as well.
• Mouthfeel:  Slight prickling 
• Overall:  Really bold flavor in this one with really nice complexity.  This one is really lovely - best of the bunch this time.
• Volume:
• 2 gal

I'll be blending this beer along with 3 other Flanders Red blends (see Plain, Cherry, and Raspberry).  Each will be a unique blend.  I'll plan to use 2-3 gal of all the beers so that each fermenter can get a bit of fresh top up beer.  I'm hoping this will sustain them through the next year.

Blending Notes:

• 12/27/18 - Made first tincture
• Zested oranges, lime, and lemon.  Added this to 1 quart mason jar
• Added cinnamon sticks which I snapped in half
• Added Coriander and Nutmeg
• Split vanilla pod down the middle lengthwise and scraped out the seeds.  Added the whole thing into the jar
• Added vodka - this submerged all ingredients.
• 12/31/18 - The tincture had initially had an orange aroma that was significantly more pronounced than all the other ingredients.  After a few days the orange has subsided a lot and the other ingredients are now fairly evenly mixed.  IT is actually smelling very much like coke now

• 1/1/18:
• Made second tincture
• Blended the beers in the volumes noted above in a bucket fermenter

• Added the spice tincture - stirred well

• Setup with a 3 piece airlock
• 2/16/19 - Sampled the beer to check the impact of the spicing.  Orange, vanilla, and spices come through in the aroma fairly distinctly.  Also pick them up faintly in the flavor.  I think the beer could handle quite a bit more spicing.  Added my second tincture to the mix - this has smelled more and more like Coke as it's aged.
• 6/30/19 - Sampled the beer again.  The aroma has a distinct vanilla and nutmeg spice character - the original beer comes though a bit but is overshadowed by the additions.  The spicing also comes through strongly in the flavor (vanilla, nutmeg, with some cinnamon) but it's close to an equal balance to the beer flavor.  Tastes somewhat like a coke as intended.  It's very dry - a bit of back sweetening will help this one quite a bit.  I plan to bottle soon.
• 10/19/19 - Bottled tonight with 2 lbs of home made Invert #2.  Had 6 gal of beer which netted me 59 bottles of beer.  The spicing is very nice - comes through strongly but not overwhelmingly so.  I'll watch this for the next week and a half and pasteurize once it's nicely carbonated.
• 11/16/19 - This beer finally carbonated for me!  I was starting to wonder if it ever would.  Pasteurized in a hot water bath of 145 F for 30 min (water started at 180-190 F).  No exploded bottles this time.
• 6/5/20 - Tasting Notes - A very interesting beer.  I think the spicing gives  it a very strong resemblance to coke.  The base beer blend was made up of boldly flavored beers but they didn't stand up to the spicing.  It doesn't really resemble a Flanders Red in any way - base beer doesn't come though.  So, while it is a very boldly flavored beer with a certain complexity it doesn't quite hit the mark for what I was hoping the beer would be.  Lighter spicing would be in the cards next time