recipes for sour cherry beer

I have 2 sour cherry trees in my back yard that have beer written all over them. I am sure I could get at least 30-40 lbs of cherries off the trees. Do any of you know a good 5 gallon extract (not at the all-grain level yet) recipe with sour cherries? I am hoping to get a few recipes that people have already bottled and drank. I have no clue what type of recipe I want to use but, I am finally at the stage of brewing where I can create my own recipes based on what I like. I have never tried a sour cherry beer yet.

I'd make a chocolate stout and add cherries to the primary fermenter. Blanch them first.

You could use my Dark Horse stout recipe, but omit the coffee and the baker's chocolate and just go with a whole container of cocoa powder.

I brewed a Spiced Cherry Dubbel with 6 lbs of tart cherries and 4lbs of Bing cherries that was outstanding. It would be equally as good with all tart cherries I would think.

Recipe is here - https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=21029

I am not looking to make a stout yet. I will probably make a sour cherry stout over the winter so I can lager it. I will put the cherries int he freezer

I have a cherry stout of Evan!'s a while back that was pretty tasty. I like the combination of the dark, chocolately roasted malts and the cherries; it's a strong enough beer for the flavor to come through without being overpowering, and the flavors are naturally complementary.

It'll be hard to find a recipe that already uses cherries and is exactly what you want.

A better option is to think about a style of beer, or a beer you've already made, that you think would go really well with some cherries, and then add cherries to it.

Adding fruit to beer is the same whether it's an extract or AG beer, and you have a lot of options about how to do it. Since your cherries are homegrown, you probably want to heat them up somehow to kill off any wild yeasts, so I would suggest getting some pectin enzyme from your homebrew store to get rid of the haze.

great advice on the heating- I don't really even know when to put them into the wort. I have never made a beer with fruit in it before

the only problem is that I have only made about 5 batches of beer so far. I made a half decent all amber extract/ high hopped beer but the high hops might not be a smart move for a cherry beer. I have never made a wheat beer

I'd go light on the hops too... the cherries will add tartness that won't work well with a evenly balanced beer.

I am getting great info but does anyone have any recipes. How much is too much hops? what type of malt to use?

What kind of beer do you think would be good with cherries? I think the cherry dubbel somebody else mentioned sounds good, but I don't have to drink it, so what do you want?

This isn't a paint-by-numbers kinda thing... you don't need a cherry beer recipe, you just need a beer recipe and you can add cherries to it.

As much as i want to agree with you TBL, I can't. I love to cook and there are certain ingredients that don't go together. I don't think one can just find a beer and add cherries. I love a hoppy beer, but apparently that is not a good idea when making a cherry beer. My other concern is how many cherries to use. These are very tart cherries- I am sure that could devastate a beer if too many are put into the batch. I do not want to create a beer and wait 2 months to drink it only to find out I screwed it up because of something stupid I did not know. I guess that is why I wanted to know if anyone had a good sour cerry recipe. Or I will have to use your advice and just add cherries to a beer that I like. Thanks for all the info

gmay10 said:

great advice on the heating- I don't really even know when to put them into the wort. I have never made a beer with fruit in it before

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If it were me I'd freeze the cherries when they are ready, ferment the beer, rack the beer on top of them for secondary, then rack back off the fruit (tertiary?) for long-term aging when you think they are all soaked out. Then maybe bottle a couple of months before the due date.

One time I put sour cherries in the primary and it came out very harsh and winey; after about a year the beer component was starting to fall apart but the cherry was finally decent. The flavors never were pleasant at the same time. I was very new to brewing then, but I think the problem was having them in the primary.

I just racked a 1 gallon microbatch of mead onto a pound of frozen blackberries and the color is remarkable. I'm going to try this with a batch of weizen two batches down the road.

What about a wit with some acid malt, racked onto the cherries in secondary?

4.5 Gallons cool water
8 oz. Crushed wheat malt
8 oz. Crushed Munich malt
2 tsp. Gypsum
6.6 lb. Light Malt Extract

1 oz. Northern Brewer hops @ 60
1/2 oz. Fuggles hops @ 20
1/2 oz. Tettnanger hops @ 10
1 tsp. Irish moss @ 10

10 lbs. crushed sour cherries
& EITHER 7 lbs. frozen cherries
OR 2 lbs. dried cherries @ 0
4 tsp. pectic enzyme @ 0

Wyeast 1968 ESB OR 1388 Belgian Strong Ale
OR WLP002 English Ale

SG: 1.066
FG: 1.016
Target ABV: 6.5%

From Dogfish Head Extreme Brewing

That recipe sounds awesome!
I will be tweaking the hops a bit because of the hops that I currently have inb the fridge. I will be using an abbey ale yeast

My only other questions is- when do I put the cherries in and how do I get them clean enough to put in? I know not to boil them but should I put them in after the boil, primary, or during secondary.
Thanks for all of these suggestions- they have really helped

I have my recipe and have done a ton of research. I am using an abbey ale yeast. I got the yeast because there will be more fermentables in the wort thus a higher abv. The only problem is that everyone is saying to put the cherries into the secondary- by then, most of the yeast is spent and thus wasting an abbey type yeast. Some say to then add more yeast to put into the secondary but that defeats the entire purpose of buying an abbey yeast.

Can I put the cherries in during primary or will that take too much of the cherry flavor out of it? I have read so many things that my head is spinning- but this is the exact reason I love homebrewing. I just don't want someone telling me what to, I want to understand why I am doing it.
I will be using 10 lbs of sour cherries for this batch- it will take over a half year to finish.

gmay10 said:

As much as i want to agree with you TBL, I can't. I love to cook and there are certain ingredients that don't go together. I don't think one can just find a beer and add cherries. I love a hoppy beer, but apparently that is not a good idea when making a cherry beer. My other concern is how many cherries to use. These are very tart cherries- I am sure that could devastate a beer if too many are put into the batch. I do not want to create a beer and wait 2 months to drink it only to find out I screwed it up because of something stupid I did not know. I guess that is why I wanted to know if anyone had a good sour cerry recipe. Or I will have to use your advice and just add cherries to a beer that I like. Thanks for all the info

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I think you misunderstood what I was suggesting... I didn't mean find some beer that you just generally like an add cherry to it, I meant find a beer that you think would be good with cherries and add cherries to it. Use your cooking sense!

I'm picking up what your putting down TBL. This is my first batch of fruit beer and I have only made 4 other batches so I am not exactly sure what kind of recipes I like yet, but I thank you for all of her suggestions TBL. I found this to be as helpful as anything I have read on fruit beers. It is packed with info- just give it a listen.
http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/archive/Jamil04-24-06.mp3

My first batch of beer ever was a chocolate stout, and I looked around for weeks to find a good chocolate stout recipe to brew.

Now I look back on it and think I made a mistake approaching it that way - I would have been better served looking for a good stout recipe and adding chocolate to it. I look at the recipe I brewed up and cringe now

It came out well anyway, but I still think I came at it from the wrong angle. Of course, I still learned a lot about adding chocolate to beer from brewing it, so I suppose it wasn't a total loss

IMO, the hotter weather lends itself to the belgian/saison yeasts or the white labs east coast / california / california V yeasts. Right now I have a belgian dubbel and a "misfit" beer going (had a random jug of malt extract and a bunch of special b laying around).

I could easily add sour cherries to either of them, the trick is to figure out how much, and how your going to do it. My advice is to keep it simple, 1 lb per gallon should give a noticeable, but not overpowering tart flavor to the beer, but 2 lb per gallon may be waay waaay too sour. I'd say keep it closer to 1#/gal if this is your first time. When I add fruit, I always rack the beer to secondary, see how much more volume I want to meet the desired level of beer, put that much water in a pot with the fruit (I lightly crush the fruit usually but nothing says that you have to) bring it to about 170 degrees for 2-3 minutes, chill then pitch onto the racked beer, put the stopper back into the carboy and give a good swirl, let it sit for about 2 weeks.

Conversely a few months from now, when the mulberry tree in my yard really starts to drop some fruit on me, I'm going to make a mulberry lambic, for blending with belgian style strong beers in the style of Ommegang Three Philosophers in the future.

Here is the 2 beers that I am going to make with the cherries. I am making a general ale with a good amount of sour cherries- almost ten pounds, it will probably take almost a year to finish. I am using an abbey ale yeast. I used 8 lbs of light malt. Hops- 1.5 oz spalts for bittering and .5 for flavor. I will add the 10 lbs of cherries during secondary. After all of my research I am going to take my chance with washing the cherries really well and possibly blanching for a few seconds and then adding them. Wild yeast may be a problem but I will take my chances. This will be the beer I pop out every once in a while for e special occasion. I hear this may be considered a kriek beer.

The other beer I am making is a stout. I am going to add 5 lbs of sour cherries to this one. I am going to use 1 oz galen and .5 oz of nugget to bitter. Then add .5 nugget for flavor. Using a Irish stout ale yeast and then putting 5 lbs of sour cherries into secondary.

I want the smell of the cherries to come through so I am not adding any aroma hops to either of these batches. I will transfer both batches to a tertiary. I have read that even if a few bacteria get into the beer, the alcohol already created by primary fermentation will kill it.

any thoughts?

I just put my 2 sour cherry beers in to tertiaries. The regular sour cherry beer tastes really good. I think the stout will mature with age, but I am not a huge stout fan. Anyways, I am concerned about carbonating. How should I carbonate (bottling) and how long should I keep them in the tertiary. I was thinking of keeping them in the tertiary for almost a month to get things really settled out. What are your thoughts?

Carbonate as normal, there's nothing different about carbonating a beer that has had fruit added to it. Any sugars in the fruit should have fermented out by the time you bottle, and if they haven't you shouldn't be bottling it yet.

As for how long to let it bulk age, well, that's pretty much up to you and how patient you want to be. There's not really a right or wrong answer. If you let it sit too long, you might not have enough active yeast to bottle condition, but that long is more like 4-5 months than 1-2.

TBL- I put the cherries into secondary and I am not sure that all the sugars were fermented out (I am assuming this). Like I said before, this is the first time I have ever made fruit beer so I am at its mercy. Am I wrong in assuming that there are still sugars in there because I put the cherries in during secondary. I just took an SG reading and it was at 1.019- my O.G. was 1.062 but that was before adding 8 lbs of cherries. I just don't want to bottle and make cherry bombs after all this time and effort was put into it. I thank you for all of your suggestions!

Usually when you add fruit to secondary you get a little more activity out of the beer - the airlock will go a little more, and there'll be yeast sediment at the bottom of the carboy.

1.019 seems a little high, though. How long was it in secondary with the fruit? And what was the recipe you ended up going with?

big supper said:

What about a wit with some acid malt, racked onto the cherries in secondary?

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I was thinking the same thing as this. New Glarus makes a raspberry tart and a sour cherry beer and they're both fantastic. Light in color, wheat-based... NG doesn't specifically use it, but the acid malt (not too much! a few ounces!) could lend some additional "tang"....

You could do a sour cherry Saison, I bet that would be glorious!

As to the two beers at hand... sorry... i got caught up in brainstorming...

I agree with TBL, 1.019 seems a touch high... I'd probably stay in tertiary 3 weeks - 1 month, like you were thinking of.. both sound good! I'm jealous of your trees!

I thought about using some acid malt in my cherry-lime wheat to give it a little sharpness, but eventually decided against it. Another option might be to add some acid blend for wine/mead/cider making at bottling time, so you can control the acidity.

My understanding is that the point of acidulated malt is to help with mashing more than a flavor profile - but I've never actually used it.

Here is the recipe that I used for the sour cherry ale
7 lbs John Bull unhopped light malt extract
1 lb plain light dry malt
1.5 oz German Spalt hops 4.0%AA @60
.5 Spalts @ 15
1tsp irish moss @ 10
OG-1.062
Abbey Ale yeast wlf-530

Primary for 1 week

Added 8 lbs sour cherries (only cleaned and rinsed to get rid of anything on the outside of cherry) during secondary- stayed for 2 weeks

Racked to a tertiary a little bit ago. used glass carboy

I think this beer tastes really close to a lambic without all the crazy stuff

My concern on this beer is that there are still some unfermented sugars in there due to adding the cherries into the secondary (although there was some blow off during secondary) and it may turn into a cherry bomb when I decide to bottle.

Sour cherry stout
7 lbs John Bull unhopped dark malt
1 lb dried muntons dark malt
1 pound crystal malt
1/2 lb black patent malt
1/2 lb roasted malt

1 oz Galena 10.1%
.5 oz nugget 11.2%- both added @60 min

.5 Mt Hood @ 15 min
O.G.- 1.061
irish ale yeast wlp 004

Put 5 lbs of sour cherries into secondary and then racked on top of it

I am not a huge stout fan but I know a lot of people who are so I decided to try this recipe. I will give it as gifts if it turns out OK. I was not a huge fan of it when I tasted it prior to putting it into the tertiary.

So these are my two recipes and I am hoping to get some advice on when I should bottle and how much corn sugar I should use to bottle.

1.019 still seems really high for those recipes... I'd wait some more and take another reading in a week.

I will do that-
Do you think it is high because some of the sugar in the cherries were not fermented? I have never made this before so I have no clue what the sugars in fruit do to a beer when they are put in during secondary.

gmay10 said:

I will do that-
Do you think it is high because some of the sugar in the cherries were not fermented? I have never made this before so I have no clue what the sugars in fruit do to a beer when they are put in during secondary.

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The sugars in the cherries are highly fermentable, they really shouldn't be left behind.

Did you take a gravity reading before adding the fruit? If so, what was it?

When I added cherry puree to a wheat beer, the overall gravity dropped from 1.017 to 1.015 or something like that (don't have my notes at work) - the additional alcohol caused the gravity reading to lower because alcohol is less dense.

I think i may have gone wrong by not taking a gravity reading at each change over. I only took a second gravity reading before racking into the tertiary. I am going to wait one week and then take another gravity reading and see what happens. I may actually leave the beers in tertiary for 1 month- does that make sense? Then I don't think there will be any doubt that all the sugars will be fully fermented. I know I keep asking the same question- but do you think that all of the sugars once I added the cherries to secondary will be fermented out? And how does that change the bottling process if the sugars were not all fermented out? Will that change the amount of corn sugar I will put in? Will there be enough yeast to carbonate the beer once bottled if I add the normal amount of corn sugar? Or will I have a cherry bomb waiting for me in a few months? I really appreciate all these suggestions TBL!

gmay10 said:

do you think that all of the sugars once I added the cherries to secondary will be fermented out? And how does that change the bottling process if the sugars were not all fermented out? Will that change the amount of corn sugar I will put in? Will there be enough yeast to carbonate the beer once bottled if I add the normal amount of corn sugar? Or will I have a cherry bomb waiting for me in a few months? I really appreciate all these suggestions TBL!

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Yes, I do think they will be fermented. And if they're not, there's really no way of knowing how much of them hasn't been, so you can't accomodate it very well in your priming and bottling.

So... you just have to wait til they're gone, but they should be gone.

I just bottled this beer last night at 1.018. It is a gorgeous clear red. The taste has really mellowed out since I put it into tertiary. I am not going to toot my horn yet but this has the making to be an amazing beer. I will post again after the first one is drank in October!

Put at least 6 of them away someplace so you can refresh yourself (and inspire) during cherry harvest next year.

Neighbors sour cherry tree is close... any news on how this recipe turned out? Trying to decide between wine and ale.

This is a Cherry Cider using some cheaply obtained cherry juice.

Here's my version (yields just over 6 gallons):
Primary:
19 - 1 liter, cans of all natural sour cherry juice
2 lbs Dark brown sugar
1.5 tsp calcium carbonate
5 tsp pectin
5 tsp yeast nutrient
5x camden tablets 48 hrs prior to yeast inoculation.
Wyeast cider smack pack.

Secondary (Keg):
Transferred cider
Add 5 cups of Splenda (non-fermentable)
Blue food color (just for the blood effect)

You will need to let the cider age at least a couple of months, at first it will taste like a nice Cabernet, but eventually the taste of the cherry's will come back.

Tested 1L using standard beer yeast, 1/2 tsp of nutrient and 1/2 c of Brown sugar.
SG 1.081, FG 1.002, Taste is very tart.

Primary fermentation proceed very will, highly active but very little blow off and low flocculation.

This one is easy!

3.3# Pilsner Malt Extract (Liquid)
3.3# Wheat Malt Extract (Liquid)
Hallertauer 1 oz 60 min
10 # pitted and frozen cherries
Wyeast 1056

Freeze the cherries in two different portions 3 pounds and 7 pounds. When the boil is over and you begin the cooling process add the 3 pound portion to the pot this will start the infusion process put the remaining 7 pounds in the fermentor. Cool to 79 degrees and pitch yeast. Primary 7 days then rack off trub to secondary for two weeks, I like to keep it a little cooler by putting the secondary in a water bath. Bottle with priming sugar. The cherry flavor is a little on the subtle side but very drinkable! Good Luck!

just do a search for cherry beer.
isn't there a recipe here on HomeBrewTalk in the Recipe part?

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