Looking to brew an old ale with some Brett character

I've never done a wild/sour beer, but I brew a strong keeping ale every year so I have the basis of big beer brewing down (aeration, pitch rate, etc.). I don't actually keep any, but that's another motivation for brewing a beer that absoltely needs to mature, to teach me patience.

My plan is to brew a basic 1.090 strong ale with MO, biscuit and a touch of crystal, secondary it for a bunch (maybe with oak ?), bottle and keep for the following years.

Now, as I said, I've never done a wild/sour beer before, altough I've had some. I'm looking at some mild, fruity Brett character and next to no sourness. Basically, just some underlying funk. I would prefer no phenolic character.

What's my best course for action ? Pitch a normal sacc strain and then pitch brett in the secondary ? If so, what Brett strain ?

I also see that wyeast has their old ale strain coming out as a seasonal, but I've read after searching that it is not mild and can give a phenolic, belgian character. Any way to alleviate that ?

Finally, how do you bottle and plan on keeping Brett beers for many years ? Wait a whole bunch until gravity is really stable and then plan on the brett carbonating the bottles or do you add fresh yeast ?

So many questions !

With a beer as big as 1.090 you're likely to end up with a 11% beer after the brett is finished with it. For strains: Brett C was originally isolated from an English beer. It is pretty fruity when young, tends toward leather when aged, and is generally pretty mild. That sounds like pretty much what you're looking for. There are also a lot of brett blends for added complexity, though I don't have experience using all of them. I'd wait at least six months to bottle something that big and go ahead with packaging as soon as I had consecutive gravity readings. Let us know how it turns out.

A lot of good info here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=200538

I have no idea what you mean by phenolic, Belgian character.

I really enjoyed Wyeast 9097PC Old Ale, but it was fairly funky...tart cherry, leather, and a little musty. There was nothing "Belgian" about it, but much of the flavors are phenolic, as are many of Brett derived flavors.

You could always try doing a split batch, one with Brett, and blending to taste.

Thanks for the answers.

I checked the wyeast, whitelabs and yeastbay descriptors and have found that Brett C seems to be a good match for what I'm looking for, altough I've never brewed with it (obviously) and I don't have any commercial examples to pinpoint what it brings to the table. On the other hand, 9097 is tempting since it's a seasonal strain and it might never come back. I might also throttle back the gravity as to ensure that I can get it bottled and carbed.

On the question of Belgian phenols, I meant the characteristic spicy, clovy, earthy aroma and taste. I want the finish beer to veer more towards the English side. I realize this might not be entirely possible with Brett, but I want to maximise the fruit as much as possible and downplay the major funk (smoke, horsy, goaty,etc.)

I also like the idea of blending a lot. I'll be brewing this beer probably in a few weeks and I'll keep the thread updated.

What I'll do (I have a very similar beer, an Old Ale fermented with Wyeast 1469 as a primary yeast, and then now a year old with Brett C, plus some oak that was soaked in Port) is ferment in primary until the gravity is stable, rack over, and let it sit for a good long while with Brett/bugs (just Brett in this case). For Brett only, I would go a minimum of 6 months, probably a year. I plan on giving this particular beer another year despite the gravity being stable, as I want it aged consistently together and to bring out the "old" a little bit more. And then when I'm bottling, I'll add some champagne yeast at bottling time.

Qhrumphf said:

What I'll do (I have a very similar beer, an Old Ale fermented with Wyeast 1469 as a primary yeast, and then now a year old with Brett C, plus some oak that was soaked in Port) is ferment in primary until the gravity is stable, rack over, and let it sit for a good long while with Brett/bugs (just Brett in this case). For Brett only, I would go a minimum of 6 months, probably a year. I plan on giving this particular beer another year despite the gravity being stable, as I want it aged consistently together and to bring out the "old" a little bit more. And then when I'm bottling, I'll add some champagne yeast at bottling time.

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This sounds a lot like what I plan to do. Any reason why champagne yeast instead of sacc or wine yeast ? I'm new at this...

jfr1111 said:

This sounds a lot like what I plan to do. Any reason why champagne yeast instead of sacc or wine yeast ? I'm new at this...

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It's cheap, neutral, and it's high alcohol tolerance, and it's dry yeast so it's stable, so I usually have some on hand. No reason the others won't work.

Qhrumphf said:

It's cheap, neutral, and it's high alcohol tolerance, and it's dry yeast so it's stable, so I usually have some on hand. No reason the others won't work.

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Thanks for the quick answer. I'll post up the grist tonight to get an idea of if it would work or not. I'm looking to keep some body and not have the beer become too thin, but I don't want to throw a bunch of crystal malt at it either.

I'm really thinking about using something soft, attenuative and pretty neutral like wy1275 and then pitching Brett C in secondary instead of going with the seasonal release.

jfr1111 said:

Finally, how do you bottle and plan on keeping Brett beers for many years ? Wait a whole bunch until gravity is really stable and then plan on the brett carbonating the bottles or do you add fresh yeast ?

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you can add fresh yeast, or you can let the brett do the carbonation. brett will get the job done, it will just take a little longer. what's another month, after having waited 6-12 already?

sweetcell said:

you can add fresh yeast, or you can let the brett do the carbonation. brett will get the job done, it will just take a little longer. what's another month, after having waited 6-12 already?

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I like your style I will probably pitch some yeast as an insurance policy anyway though.

Here's the grist :

Recipe: Old Ale 1.0
Style: English Barleywine
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 7,52 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5,83 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5,00 gal
Bottling Volume: whatever is left after I thief a sample every week for a year
Estimated OG: 1,086 SG
Estimated Color: 15,9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 36,8 IBUs

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
14 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3,0 SRM) Grain 1 86,2 %
2 lbs Munich Malt (9,0 SRM) Grain 2 12,3 %
4,0 oz Chocolate Malt (450,0 SRM) Grain 3 1,5 %
2,00 oz Mt. Hood [6,00 %] - Boil 60,0 min Hop 4 36,8 IBUs

Mash will be BIAB 90 minutes @ 150F as to insure attenuation from the sacc but keep some body. I decided against caramel malts and went for Munich, a touch of chocolate malt and low hopping rate instead since I don't always like crystal in big beers. I might just add 4 ounces of C-120 just because though.

Pitch a buttload of English sacc and pitch Brett C (without a starter ?) after gravity is stable and racking to secondary has been done. Age for minimum 8 months, but shoot for 12. Maybe oak it, but probably not.

Quick note. I have a barley wine that I added Brett to half of. Its been sitting in a carboy for over a year now. I'm the first year the gravity only dropped 5 points, I attribute this to the Brett being very stained by the high initial alcohol content. This year I built up a pseudo starter of Brett C to get it used to high alcohol, and it's dropped Smith 6 points in 4 months. I don't recommend bottling anything with Brett before 1.010, otherwise you'll likely have some bombs on your hands.

gometz said:

Quick note. I have a barley wine that I added Brett to half of. Its been sitting in a carboy for over a year now. I'm the first year the gravity only dropped 5 points, I attribute this to the Brett being very stained by the high initial alcohol content. This year I built up a pseudo starter of Brett C to get it used to high alcohol, and it's dropped Smith 6 points in 4 months. I don't recommend bottling anything with Brett before 1.010, otherwise you'll likely have some bombs on your hands.

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Thanks for the heads up. I'll insure to have a higher cell cout that just a smakpack.

jfr1111 said:

Bottling Volume: whatever is left after I thief a sample every week for a year

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eek, i'd resist the urge to open your fermentor that often to sample. you won't notice that much change from week to week, and instead you'll potentially be introducing oxygen. some oxidation is expected with the style, but a weekly opening will probably result in too much.

sweetcell said:

eek, i'd resist the urge to open your fermentor that often to sample. you won't notice that much change from week to week, and instead you'll potentially be introducing oxygen. some oxidation is expected with the style, but a weekly opening will probably result in too much.

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Yep. I sample every 4-6 months.

jfr1111 said:

Thanks for the heads up. I'll insure to have a higher cell cout that just a smakpack.

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A good way to do it is to make the starter a week ahead and the Brett used to a 8%+ ABV environment. I haven't sampled mine in two months now, but it could be getting close to done.

Fyi, just sampled mine. Somehow it has developed a sour flavor. I like it personally, but not what I had expected. Could be that too much oxygen got into the carboy.

sweetcell said:

eek, i'd resist the urge to open your fermentor that often to sample. you won't notice that much change from week to week, and instead you'll potentially be introducing oxygen. some oxidation is expected with the style, but a weekly opening will probably result in too much.

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That was more of a joke on how I tend to be a major carboy/bottle/keg thief I can't count the number of times I've opened a beer after five (or even two...) days of bottling time in the hopes that it had magically carbed. It never has. I will NEED to age it somewhere else than my house. I will also set up a hard calendar for sampling (ie. no smaple before 6 months and then every 3 months, etc.)

I also want to reduce the percentage of quick turn around beers I brew and instead focus on longer projets.

The reason are twofold: I want to experience, taste and do different things while still brewing a lot and I also want to curb my beer consumption a bit. If the beer ain't ready to bottle, that's a major reason to wait.

I actually stumbled back across this thread while reading into why my Barleywine might have turned sour. It turns out that White Labs Brett C is not 100% clean and contains some lacto. So if that is what you used, it's likely you'll end up with some sourness after all.

gometz said:

I actually stumbled back across this thread while reading into why my Barleywine might have turned sour. It turns out that White Labs Brett C is not 100% clean and contains some lacto. So if that is what you used, it's likely you'll end up with some sourness after all.

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Hmmmm.....very interesting. I haven't experienced it, possibly because lacto doesn't like hops.

First I'm hearing this. Happen to have a source?