English Barleywine with brettanomycese

Brettanomycese means "brittish brewing industry fungus, but Ive never had a brittish beer with bret. Ive been thinking about it, and I think that a nice caramely English Barleywine would be very nice with a little bit of funk. My plan would be to ferment out a barleywine completely with an english ale yeast and add bret in the tertiary fermentor, then wait 6 months or so and prime and bottle as usual.

What do you guys think?

Good luck with that. Even if it turns out weird I'd probably still turn it up with you just for the sake of experimentation. Maybe it'll turn out ok. Haven't been able to find a barleywine yet so I can't really comment as to how i think one would taste with brett funk.

It would turn out really well as long as use a good strain of Brett. Wyeast sells both Brett B and L year round, and you could probably find C now as well. I would follow your plan but add the Brett in secondary, no need for a tertiary fermenter. Mash higher, around 155-156 so you have plenty of unfermentables for the Brett to eat. Add one pack of Brett into secondary and you'll be all set. I did an Oat Wine with a brett secondary and its turning out fantastically.

B. claussenii is the classic British Brett strain, though it was a limited release from Wyeast (and White Labs may have some available as well?).

I have an Old Ale in secondary with a beautiful Brett pellicle going right, and there it will sit for at least another 6 months before I package it; an English barleywine would be a good choice to dose with some Brett if you can locate the claussenii.

I have some oak chips inoculated with claussenii that I could send you, if you are interested.

flyangler18 said:

B. claussenii is the classic British Brett strain, though it was a limited release from Wyeast (and White Labs may have some available as well?).

Click to expand...

The White labs Brett C, has been shown to be two separate strains, which really helped explain why people who used it had such varied experiences with it.

awhile back wyeast put out an old ale blend, it was an english strain and brett brux, dunno about your lhbs but mine tends to always have a pack or two of old VSS strains laying around, and they typically just give them to me, they may be a bit old but thats nothing a starter cant over come

i bottled a barleywine recently and it def picked up some funk in the barrel or somewhere along the way.

background:
the beer was brewed in early november. around mid december it was dumped into the 5 gal oak whiskey barrel from the group buy in the classified section (thanks again saccharomyces and infidel). it spent three weeks in the barrel; went in @ 1.018 and came out at 1.010. it went in secondary at 1.010 in early january and stayed there until mid march when i bottled it. no gravity drop at all, bottled with SG of 1.010. i didn't notice and funk then and the gravity stayed so steady i didn't think anything of it.

my question to you pro's...
is it possible the brett was dormant until the priming sugar was added? why would it suddenly develop the brett funk out of nowhere? i added extra yeast at bottling for the fear of a lengthy time for carbonation, but i opened a test bottle after only 2 weeks in bottle and it's overcarbonated. i was shooting for 3 volume CO2 (5 oz corn sugar in 5 gal beer) but it seems to have quite a bit more than that, prob from the brett. any ideas how the gravity can hold so steady and then proliferate when it didn't previously? what gives? it tastes great and i certainly don't mind a little funk, but fear bottle bombs could be in my near future. i guess the barrel went funky a little prematurely which explains why all my BIG beers are going in the barrel high (~1.030) and coming out lower than normal (~1.010).

It could have picked up something in the barrel, although most of my brett beers like this seem to be fruity while young and then develop a much stronger brett character as the brett metabolizes esters produced by sacch

I dunno about your carbonation issues, you might pop the tops to release pressure and recap, why did you prime to such a high level? 3 vol of CO2 is more than enough for something very spritzy like a b weiss or a gueuze, I would think you would want a significantly lower amount of carbonation in a barleywine

ryane said:

why did you prime to such a high level? 3 vol of CO2 is more than enough for something very spritzy like a b weiss or a gueuze, I would think you would want a significantly lower amount of carbonation in a barleywine

Click to expand...

you're definitely right about wanting lower carbonation in the barleywine, but to be honest i didn't think it would carb at all being like 12% abv. i figured i'd add extra priming sugar and new yeast to compensate the high alcohol and hope for the best. anyhow i though most gueze & lambics were carbonated to 5 volumes ehh either way i think it'll be all good i'll chalk it up to learning experience and not do the same on the rest of my high gravity beers coming outta the barrel.

the steady SG is what's got me wondering... thanks for the feedback though! and i just opened the second 12oz'r of the batch and it's not really overcarbonated, but it is fully carbed at only 2 weeks! the funk is only in the aroma, not really in the taste. taste is chocolatey, roasty and a slight tinge of whiskey/bourbon. oh, wait, theres the funk. excellent although still a bit hot on the alcohol. needs time yet-

Is six months enough time for Brett to really do much?