Beer Forum

As requested in the chat room on 12/10/06, here's my clone of the best fruit beer in the USA atm!

60% Pale Ale malt (your choice) or use 100% Breiss Wheat extract
40% Wheat Malt (your choice) or use 100% Breiss Wheat extract
8-9 HBU hopping (I use Crystal and Willamette)
1 ounce each of Crystal/Willamette @ 20 minutes before KO
1 tsp of kettle finings at 10-15 minutes before KO
1 ounce each of Crystal/Willamette @ 7 minutes before KO
Close lid at KO for 15-20 minutes, then chill to 60'F
Pitch with Wyeast 3787 Belgian Trappist Ale yeast (at least 5-6 oz per 5 gal)
After primary, either add 20# of dark red cherries per 5 gallons *OR*
add 1 can Oregon Fruit Co. Sweet Cherry Puree in secondary.
Age 1 month before bottling/kegging, then share and enjoy!

This beer won several awards so I know its good, but tweak your water salts to get the most out of your brew (I used 0.75 ounce of CaCl2, 0.15 ounce each of MgSO4 and NaCl in Portland water). Good luck!

Prost!

Michel

Don't you have to get some tart cherries of some kind to get the sourness? I am thinking of doing a similar beer but with Chokecherries and or Rhubarb. I think the cherries are what give it it's character isn't it?

Anyway, thanks for the GREAT recipe, I have one bottle of the belgian red left and am just buying time until I drink it again.

Homebrew Digest (HBD.ORG) had a whole thread on Montmorency Cherries for use in place of the Belgian Sour Cherries. They listed several sources for Juice Concentrate, Freeze Dried, and then some. They are tart, and while not the Belgian Schaerbeek, people seem to say they work well.
Some people also seem to think the pits are critical, but this can be tough out of season. I have read that the pits give the beer a subtle Almond/Vanilla flavor (Brew Like a Monk), and I wonder if a little French Oak could sub in it's place.
I have been researching this for a Flander's Inspired Beer, but also 'cause I recently bought some Mad Elf from Troeg's Brewery, made with Honey and Cherries. It comes in at 11% and is brewed just for the Holidays. That said, if anyone has or can get the New Glarus, I'd love to exchange a couple for a couple Mad Elfs!

PM me!

Rob

BrewBum wrote:Don't you have to get some tart cherries of some kind to get the sourness? I am thinking of doing a similar beer but with Chokecherries and or Rhubarb. I think the cherries are what give it it's character isn't it?

Ordinarily you'd be correct; however, New Glarus Wisconsin Red isn't a sour beer! It's a fruit beer that would, given the proper innoculant, make for the basis of an excellent sour cherry beer. I'd hazard a guess that some Wyeast Brettanomyces would help in that regard. But alas, as I said earlier, this is just a fruit beer, and a mighty fine one at that!

BrewBum wrote:Anyway, thanks for the GREAT recipe, I have one bottle of the belgian red left and am just buying time until I drink it again.

Are they making a Belgian Red now? I was not referring to a Belgian Red style, but the Wisconsin Red, which is an entirely different animal. Guess that may be where the confusion arose. Sorry about not defining the style clearly enough in the subject title line. Hope that this cleared up things though Btw, thank *you* for your appreciation

Prost!

Michel

We are talking about the same beer.

http://www.newglarusbrewing.com/beers/belgian.html

It does have tart/sour taste like a cherry cobler or pie, and my guess that comes from the kind of cherries they use. I know it is not a lambic and didn't mean to infer that it was but it does have a sour/tartness to it, at least to me. Not to a lambic level or anything, but I do taste it.

The beer is call Wisconsin Belgian Red.

I must of gotten either a fresh version, or an earlier version as it tasted quite sweet to me. I usually notice nuances in tartness, but I just don't recall anything but sweet cherry flavor and aroma. Now there was a noticable phenolic flavor and aroma from the yeast which tasted quite spicy, could that be what you were referring to as tart? Sometimes spiciness from yeast phenolics are perceived as tartness, espcially in the presence of fruity sweetness like that such as found in New Glarus Wisconsin Red. If you'd like, I'll send you a bomber when it's ready, and you can cross evaluate against the achetype from New Glarus. Afaik, the tartness is most likely a yeast derived flavor/aroma as the yeast New Glarus uses is the same one that Westmalle uses (Wyeast 3787), which gives up some very nice phenolics, tartness, and gentle fruitiness reminiscent of Christmas fruit cake cooked fruit flavors/aromas. Send me your snail mail addy, and I'll make sure you get one of the first bottles!

Have a happy ChrstmaChannuhKwanzaaka!

Michel

You may be right, all the melding of flavors from the yeast, the cherries and even the base beer(wheat) may have lead to a flavor memory that automatically triggers Cherry Pie or cobbler. It is definitely sweet, and more sweet than tart. I will really pay close attention when I open my other bottle. I also had it at GABF, so I am certain that I don't have tainted bottles either.

It is no where near as tart as their Raspberry tart beer, that is for sure.

Thanks for the offer, can't pass up free beer. I will PM the info. When I make mine this summer I will send it to you as well.

BrewBum wrote:You may be right, all the melding of flavors from the yeast, the cherries and even the base beer(wheat) may have lead to a flavor memory that automatically triggers Cherry Pie or cobbler. It is definitely sweet, and more sweet than tart. I will really pay close attention when I open my other bottle. I also had it at GABF, so I am certain that I don't have tainted bottles either.

Sounds about right to me. I'm just trying to remember the last one I had, which was at the Oregon Brewer's Festival (my wife drank just the Cherry, she didn't like the Raspberry for some odd reason!) last July. Guess it's time to pony up a fiver and try another bomber again

BrewBum wrote:It is no where near as tart as their Raspberry tart beer, that is for sure.

OMG, that's for sure, now THAT'S a tart beer! I really liked it, especially as it was very refreshing in the 90+ degree weather att.

BrewBum wrote:Thanks for the offer, can't pass up free beer. I will PM the info. When I make mine this summer I will send it to you as well.

Thanks, man, I'd like that, maybe even do a serial tasting. Have yours, mine, AND New Glarus's to compare and see how they all taste sXs. I'll be making mine right after I finish with the lager season, maybe late February, early March? At any rate, it sounds like a good time to me!

Happy ChrismaChannuhKwanzaaka!

Michel