Riesling Ale sampling

So this weekend I stopped at a couple of breweries for some sampling. And one had a Riesling Ale. Here's their description:

Riesling Ale
The first beer of it's kind! We actually blended pure NY riesling juice with an American wheat beer and came up with something truly unique. The nose starts out a bit grapey and spicy, while the flavor is a subtle blend of white wine and malt. We kept the color and body light; really light and ramped up the carbonation level to bring out the fruity aromas. This is the perfect beer for those hot, Western NY summer days we all know and adore.
Brewed with Pale, Wheat, and CaraPils Malts. Hopped withCentennial and Mt. Hood.
Alc. 4.5% by volume.

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It was brewed at Three Brothers Brewery in Geneva NY.

Thought it might be of interest to those who make both wine and beer. I'm a really bad at describing a beer so I'll leave it at what the description says, seemed awful unique to me. Although maybe its been done before.

For any New Yorkers out there the other places I sampled were, Rooster Fish Brewing (also known as The Crooked Rooster Brewpub) in Watkins Glen, and Wagner Valley Brewing Company, Lodi NY.

Interesting...I work at a Riesling producer and the whole office loves my brews. Maybe I can get some juice!

Three brothers doesn't make the beer, Custom Brewcrafters in Honeoye Falls makes it for them. I stopped there during the grand opening last week, the beer isn't bad for a new operation. None of our group could taste the reisling in the reisling beer though, it tasted like a light lager to me. The best part of the place (besides beer) is the winery on the pond.

You are correct nyrer. The Riesling Ale was one of the last stops of the day for me, so I can't say my tasting abilities were great, but I think I tasted the grape juice. The whole beer was so light though from what I remember that it wasn't strong. It was a lot like one of the sparkling wines we had somewhere that weekend.

Kilted Brewer, glad it was a source of inspiration. If anything comes of it let me know. I'll be curious how it turns out.

Hmmm sounds interesting..

Kinda reminds me of Dogfish Heads Mida's Touch, which has Alexander’s Muscat grape concentrate in it...

Something will come of it, but I have to wait till this years harvest to get some riesling juice. Everything we have currently is already fermented.

OK, so this thing is starting to take a little shape here in the office and there is a lot of interest. I mean our marketing guy is already talking labels...

Description states American Wheat, but NYER you say it was more like a light lager. What was it's appearance like? I imagine these folks don't bottle at all, do they?

Kilted Brewer said:

OK, so this thing is starting to take a little shape here in the office and there is a lot of interest. I mean our marketing guy is already talking labels...

Description states American Wheat, but NYER you say it was more like a light lager. What was it's appearance like? I imagine these folks don't bottle at all, do they?

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You can only buy growler's, they are brand new and the brewery is pretty small. To me it looked a little darker than miller light. I'm not a fan of light beer and I just didn't taste anything other than that. There were 6 of us tasting including my wife who works in a different winery and none of us tasted the reisling. Part of the problem could have been is that they were busy and they were pouring from open growlers that were sitting in an ice bath. When I go back I'll try to find out more, I live near the place and we know the owner.

On a side note when we were at Dogfishhead last year we tried a beer that was made with about 50% chardonney, that was good and you could taste the grape. I can't remember what they called it.

The DFH was the Midas Touch I believe. But I thought they used Muscat. Any info you can get from them would be great.

Kilted Brewer said:

The DFH was the Midas Touch I believe. But I thought they used Muscat. Any info you can get from them would be great.

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I found this on their website....maybe I had too much to drink that day, it didn't taste like a wheat to me and I love wheat beer.


"Riesling Ale
The first beer of it's kind! We actually blended pure NY riesling juice with an American wheat beer and came up with something truly unique. The nose starts out a bit grapey and spicy, while the flavor is a subtle blend of white wine and malt. We kept the color and body light; really light and ramped up the carbonation level to bring out the fruity aromas. This is the perfect beer for those hot, Western NY summer days we all know and adore.
Brewed with Pale, Wheat, and CaraPils Malts. Hopped withCentennial and Mt. Hood.
Alc. 4.5% by volume."

nyer said:

I found this on their website....maybe I had too much to drink that day, it didn't taste like a wheat to me and I love wheat beer.


"Riesling Ale
The first beer of it's kind! We actually blended pure NY riesling juice with an American wheat beer and came up with something truly unique. The nose starts out a bit grapey and spicy, while the flavor is a subtle blend of white wine and malt. We kept the color and body light; really light and ramped up the carbonation level to bring out the fruity aromas. This is the perfect beer for those hot, Western NY summer days we all know and adore.
Brewed with Pale, Wheat, and CaraPils Malts. Hopped withCentennial and Mt. Hood.
Alc. 4.5% by volume."

Click to expand...

I saw this in a store the otherday, I THOUGHT maybe DFH had entered into the wine business...I missed the word Ale on the lable.

And BTW, Midas Touch is Muscat, hence what I wrote earlier.

It was the midas touch I tried at DFH. The description says it appeals to chardonnay drinker. I really liked that one but I can't find it locally, I'm bringing more home with me when we visit again in September.

I think I'm going to get some Riesling Concentrate to do some test batches, that way when harvest comes I'm not taking juice away and not haveing any clue what to do with it. Tonight I'll put together an American Wheat recipie based on the ingredients listed. This is exciting.

Wow Kilted Brewer, that is moving fast. I think the beer was as much about the carbonation as the grape juice. Nyer is right in that the wheat was very far back in the taste.

Considering where this discussion has gone I wish I had paid more attention.

I tried this also, it was interesting and just a hint of grape, but you can taste the wine in it. But it is as far from a wheat or american wheat I think. It was more of a light california ale or something as light as a lager.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/riesling-wheat-68934/ is the link to the continuation of this thread, Jilaman.

I too was up in the Finger Lakes this summer, for my 5 year anniversary actually. After 3 days of wine tasting, I said, "Really, honey... let's try some local beers." We came across the Three Brothers Winery & Brewery 1st, and wound up tasting beers at about 11:00 - 11:30am. The Riesling Ale definately sounded very different. I agree with some of the folks here who tried it also, and said that it was almost too light in flavor. There was almost nothing to taste. It reminded me of a sparkling wine.

Well, I thought I'd try this out myself, since my father-in-law grows many varieties of grapes in mass quantities. I used a common ale as a base, and added 1 gallon of fresh pasturized riesling juice to the fermentor before pitching (was making a 5g batch). This was done literally today. My OG is 1.070 The smell and taste of the juice seemed to compliment the worts taste and aromas. Only time will tell.

I have another gallon of the juice to try a second experimental batch. I may use a different base. Originally I wanted to use a pilsner-like base to try to replicate what 3 brothers had made, but in the end, I really wanted something more tasteful.

We'll see!

5gB

Wanted to give you all a follow up to my own experimental Riesling Ale brew. The flavors have blended a lot better. The overwhelming grapefruitiness has become more subtle, and there is an overall smoothness that is taking place. I'm guessing it still needs a few more months in the bottle. I'm also thinking that next time I try making this beer, I will use something lighter than a common california ale as a base, and use half as much or less riesling juice. Anyone else try making a homebrew of this kind yet?

5gB

Didn't Bells have a Sparkling Wine Ale or something like that once? It wasn't bad at all.

Not THAT exciting, believe Dogfish Head also has a brew with 11% Pinot Noir juice as well...