This beer will be a blend of Sour Blonde Ale from my stockpile of mature beers (10 5-6 gal batches) aged on 11 lbs of Sour Cherries I picked last summer at a
local orchard. You can read the notes from a recent tasting
here. I will also be blending a
Plain Sour Blonde and one
with Raspberries which will be tracked in other posts.
I will be making 5 gal of this beer which will leave enough head space for the fruit (a lesson learned from my
2017 Cherry Flanders Red where I tried to fit 6 gal of beer in a bucket fermenter with 12 lbs of fruit). My goal with this blend of beers will be to provide an interesting but somewhat mild base beer to allow the Cherries to really shine. I think too much sourness could run the risk of becoming overwhelming as the cherries will lend quite a bit of acidity to the final beer.
With this in mind I will use the following beers:
- 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 #3:
- Beers:
- Overview:
- Third pitch of Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
- Grainbill of 2/3 pilsner and 1/3 flaked wheat
- Cut hops back to 1/2 oz
- Decided to only mash for 15 min to get a less converted wort. Ended up with abysmal 43% efficiency
- 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:
- Funky/musty brett character dominates the aroma. Has a bit of cider character and some sulfur smell as well.
- Straw yellow and a bit murky.
- A bit of a musty flavor initially and finishes with a slight tartness. Get sort of a mineral flavor as well.
- Light bodied and pretty dry. Smooth drinking
- Very mild in flavor and not very complex
- 1/10 (0.5 gal) from Fermenter #9:
- Beers:
- Overview:
- Second pitch of ECY 34 Dirty Dozen
- Brewed with a bit over 1/3 Raw Wheat which was cereal mashed. Used pilsner and a bit of munich for color
- Primary was performed with a blend of brewers yeast and lacto
- Maltodextrine was added to give the microbes a bit more to work on
- No hops were used
- Beer has been aged in a bucket fermenter
- Tasting Notes:
- Cheesy and earthy funk. A bit of overripe fruit as well
- Light gold and quite hazy
- Moderately sour with a bit of cheesy brett character. Has a slight mineral flavor to it. I get a bit of bready malt in the finish as well.
- Medium light in body and dry. Slight prickly feeling in the mouth
- Some interesting flavors and aroma. Not terribly bold but has a pretty pleasant complexity
This will use up quite a bit of the Sour Blonde 1.1.1 which is a pretty boring beer that is unlikely to become interesting and then adds in three other beers which are not very sour but have quite a bit of complexity. It think there will be enough beer flavor to cut through the cherries but not detract from this being a cherry beer primarily.
The cherries have been frozen for the last year which should allow the juice to be released more freely. They have the pits in them still which should have a slight flavor impact as well. Sour cherries have a nice flavor but, based on my previous beers using them, I've found that they benefit from a bit of help in the form of black cherry juice to increase the cherry flavor somewhat - I'll add 1 quart of this.
I'll give this batch 2 months for secondary fermentation to take place prior to bottling. I may back sweeten this beer slightly with some golden invert syrup if I feel it's become a too dry.
Blending Notes:
- Added the sour cherries and black cherry juice
- 12/9/18 - Bottled today with 6.5 oz of priming sugar and a rehydrated packet of Red Star Priemer Cuvee wine yeast. Got about 6 gal of beer off the fruit which netted me 56 12 oz bottles. The beer is a light red or dark pink in color. I measured the gravity as 1.004. The beer has a nice tart cherry flavor which, together with the beer, produces a product with a medium level of sourness. It is a dry beer but I think tastes nicely balanced - I've opted not to backsweeten based on this.
- 6/23/19 - Tasting Notes - A really nice cherry beer that puts the fruit front and center. The based beer comes through enough to add a bit of complexity with brett flavors to keep things more interesting. Really refreshing beer as well.
