Sour Cherry Crop - 2022

This will be a post tracking the progress of my 4 Sour Cherry trees in their third growing season (read about Season 1 and Season 2).  These are Dwarf North Star Cherry trees which came to me as bare root stock of about 3 feet in height.  They are expected to grow 8-10 feet tall and wide and start providing some meaningful amount of fruit about 3 years after planting.

Last year the plants grew pretty nicely and the trunks have been getting pretty thick.  It put out a dozen flowers maybe and I ended up getting to taste a few reasonably ripe pieces of fruit.  Another rejuvenating winter has passed and I'm happy to see that all of my young trees have come back strong and healthy and have produced many flowers.

I believe I'll be able to taste quite a bit of ripe fruit this year (and get a sense of the difference between this variety and the Montmorency variety of sour cherries which are common around here but which are quite different than the Belgian variety which are used in Kriek Lambic).  My main goal, aside from getting a bit of the fruits of my labors so far, will be to keep these plants healthy and growing strong (which will largely be a job of protecting the plants from the deer).

I will post a photo update on here monthly over the growing season:

7/11/22

6/6/22

5/15/22

4/22/22

Growing Notes:

• 5/15/22 - 
• Stripped away the weeds in a 1 foot radius around the trees, applied a couple handfulls each of Blood Meal and Bone Meal, and then top dressed with a couple inches of compost.  I made sure to not cover the splice point on the trees
• We've had quite a bit of rain in the last couple weeks so I haven't had to water
• I applied deer spray but the rain washed it away and some of the trees were nibbled on a bit.  Fairly minor damage I think.  I'll have to be better about applying it.
• Lots of green berries are forming at various stages of development (1/8 in to 1/2 in at this point) 
• 6/6/22 - Starting to see the small number of cherries ripen.  I think I'm just going to eat them all rather than attempting to harvest this year.
• 6/19/22 - I've been picking cherries for the last week.  I've got them in a 1 gal freezer bag (have 2 lb 6 oz at this point).  I'm picking them when they're dark red

Kölsch - Tasting Notes

I brewed up this Kölsch style beer way back in December.  It fermented for a couple weeks, laggered at near freezing for over a month, and has now been in the keg since Mid-February.  It is a very nice beer to have on tap as it's very easy drinking and has a smooth crisp flavor.

A Kölsch is a hybrid style of beer which is brewed with a special yeast strain specific to the style and fermented warm but then lagered for a period at cold temperatures.  It is a beer brewed in Cologne Germany.  That warm fermentation is supposed go give the beer a more fruity character than a typical lager.

Anyway, this has been a lovely beer to have on tap.  I very much enjoy brewing German styles of beer and was very confident that this would be no different.  I was right to be confident.  I'm happily surprised to have this beer left after two months.  Onto the tasting notes.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Bready pilsner malt and a bit of grassy herbal hop.  Has a lager yeast aroma with a bit of fruit aroma in there.  Maybe a bit of a wine-like character.
• Appearance:
• Pours with a finger of head that lasts a couple minutes before settling to a thin ring - leaves lacing on the glass.  Light gold and very clear.
• Flavor:
• Light bready malt followed by herbal hop flavor.  Also get some lager yeast character mixed into the flavor profile up front.  It is lightly bitter on the finish.  This is pretty nicely balanced by a very slight bit of malt character.  I want to say there is a slight fruitiness to the flavor as well (hope this isn't just my imagination playing tricks on me)
• Mouthfeel:
• Light bodied and pretty dry.  Very smooth and easy drinking.
• Overall:
• This is a light, easy drinking beer, with some very nice flavor and aroma.  Flavors are fairly mild but with a a bit of focus you can appreciate that it has a fair amount of complexity.  The style is said to be differentiated from a more standard lager by a fruity character - this isn't something I picked out in my more casual enjoyment of the beer (where the beer seemed to have a lot of the standard lager fermentation character) but on closer inspection I would say this beer does offer a subtle fruitiness.