Sour Cherry Brown advice request...

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ColoradoXJ13

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Hey all,

I just tried the re-release of New Belgiums Old Cherry Ale, and it got me thinking about a nice fall/winter beer I would like to make. I do 10-gallon, all grain batches, was thinking about doing a 10-gallon brown ale, maybe modeled after the recipe in Jamil's book (as every single beer I have made from there, really the last 10 batches I have made, have been great). I always split batches to two carboys (no conical in my brewery), and was thinking of just fermenting one with US-05, and the other /w/ US-05 and a wild-yeast (Brett Brux maybe?) or just the wild yeast. Then, after primary, racking each onto cherries of some sort. Sour cherries would be nice, but I don't know where I would find any fresh cherries in bulk here...maybe I'll just use Oregon preserves.

Any suggestions for recipes? Yeast critiques? Cherry ideas?

I'd ideally like the brown cherry ale to come out reddish, nice cherry flavor and aroma, a little sweet but not overpowering.

The sour I'd like to be funky, fruity, and dry. I know I will need to age it forever and that is fine.
 
I found this link after some searching. Did you brew this one up?

I'm thinking about something similar, but with a partial sour mash instead of Brett. I'm waffling between Oregon cherry puree/preserves or tart cherry juice concentrate from the health food store.
 
I made a Cherry Wheat a few weeks ago.

I added 2 - 14.x oz bottles of Montmerency Cherry juice (from Fareway for $2.99) to a batch (too much really). It now has an addicting tart cherry flavor now. 1 bottle would have done it. I think I will add a gal (or two) of another pale ale or something to water down the cherry a bit. :D
 
I made a Cherry Wheat a few weeks ago.

I added 2 - 14.x oz bottles of Montmerency Cherry juice (from Fareway for $2.99) to a batch (too much really). It now has an addicting tart cherry flavor now. 1 bottle would have done it. I think I will add a gal (or two) of another pale ale or something to water down the cherry a bit. :D



Thanks for the tip. I'm going for a strong malt backbone, with some lactic twang and a hint of cherry. Was the Montmorency actual cherry juice, or was it concentrate?
 
I did end up doing this, but differently. I did Jamil's Northern English Brown, but did a 48 hour sour mash of about 20% of the base grains. Split the 10 gallon batch, 1/2 of it onto 6# of oregon cherries, 1/2 onto 3# of oregon raspberries. They are sitting on the fruit now (been 2 weeks or so), will leave for another two weeks, then keg. It isn't very sour, but this is a first try, I will tweak it after I taste the results.
 
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