New Glarus Wisconsin Belgian Red cherry addition rate

I really like New Glarus Wisconsin Belgian Red. It's in the style of kriek and is very delicious. Anyway, the New Glarus website says that it is made with "over a pound of Door County Cherries in every bottle". It is only sold in 750 mL bottles.

If my calculations are correct, that would mean that they use about 5 pounds of cherries per gallon -- a quantity that exceeds the 1-3 pounds/gallon guideline that is frequently tossed about in homebrew circles. Might be worth a try sometime...

There is a lot more to that beer than just a lot of cherries. I have tried cloning it before and used one pound per 12oz bottle, it still didn't have the same pie character as NGBR. It's a sour wheat based brown that is aged for a long time on a ton of whole cherries in wood. Dan Carey is very tight lipped about it because it took him over 6 years to develop and it's the beer that made him famous. The one thing I have heard him say is that no other brewers are making beers that way and if you want to make something like that you need to look to what wine makers are doing. It makes sense because with that level of fruit and the extended aging in wood an argument could be made that it's as much a wine as a beer.

I'm doing some experimenting with wine cultures in fruit beers, I'll figure this beer out it just might take me 6 years. I have the base recipe pretty well dialed in but I'm still working on the fruit and souring though. I'm using pomegranate right now so I don't get bored and because it has a similar acid level to tart cherries.

If I were going to try to clone this I would probably start with 6 lbs of cherries (with pits) in the secondary and then cherry concentrate (several online vendors) to taste. The NG version is very sweet and has a lot of cherry flavor, so I think its clear that not all of the cherry sugar is fermented out and at some point it might have to be stabilized and more cherry concentrate added.

remilard said:

If I were going to try to clone this I would probably start with 6 lbs of cherries (with pits) in the secondary and then cherry concentrate (several online vendors) to taste. The NG version is very sweet and has a lot of cherry flavor, so I think its clear that not all of the cherry sugar is fermented out and at some point it might have to be stabilized and more cherry concentrate added.

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That was my first approach, I used the concentrate to backsweeten. I think they may do some of this as the beer is pasteurized allowing some fructose to be left in the bottle. Mine was still more tart than theirs though, so I'm pretty sure there is a malo-lactic fermentation before backsweetening to smooth out some of the tart character and give it that lactic sourness that works so well with the cherries.

It's tricky because you can't just add all the cherry during fermentation or you will end up with an enormous beer. Their beer is only 5.1%, it's surprisingly difficult to get that level of fruit character and keep the abv that low. That's why I think it's definitely a balancing act of fermenting some to give it that vinous character and sweetening with some to keep the abv down and give it that fresh fruit sweetness.

I just brewed a Sour Cherry Berliner and it turned out to be a very close clone of the Belgian Red beer. I used the Berliner recipe from the Brewing Classic Styles Book and added extra lactic acid to make it a little more sour. I ended up buying some tart cherry concentrate online and added roughly 18oz to 4 gallons beer. (I drank 1 gallon of the Berliner by itself) That equated to about 12.6 lbs of cherries and this thing turned out like nice sour liquid cherry pie. Everyone is raving about this beer. I did a batch earlier with 10lbs of actual cherries in the secondary, using the Belgian Red recipe in the back of Homebrewed Adventures book and it was good as well, but I like this combo better. I like the combination of the Sour Berliner and the Sour Cherry, really nice.

I'm thinking about doing the New Glarus Belgian Red Clone that I've seen in Zymurgy...and I have about 2-3 lbs of whole North Star Cherries, and then was thinking about buying a quart of Montmorency fruit concentrate. That I quart of concentrate is said to have 25 lbs of cherries in it. What I'm wondering is, for the North Star cherries, should I leave the pits in, or pit them? I've heard that the pits give it a little bit of an almondy taste that I think might ad a little bit of complexity, and with only using 2-3 lbs of fresh cherries with pits, I don't think it will over power the beer. Any thoughts?

nevermind -- just repeating others

madbare said:

I just brewed a Sour Cherry Berliner and it turned out to be a very close clone of the Belgian Red beer. I used the Berliner recipe from the Brewing Classic Styles Book and added extra lactic acid to make it a little more sour. I ended up buying some tart cherry concentrate online and added roughly 18oz to 4 gallons beer. (I drank 1 gallon of the Berliner by itself) That equated to about 12.6 lbs of cherries and this thing turned out like nice sour liquid cherry pie. Everyone is raving about this beer. I did a batch earlier with 10lbs of actual cherries in the secondary, using the Belgian Red recipe in the back of Homebrewed Adventures book and it was good as well, but I like this combo better. I like the combination of the Sour Berliner and the Sour Cherry, really nice.

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Would you mind posting the full recipe?

Just a bump in case anyone has a solid recipe for this - I'm going with this for now unless anyone has recommendations:

http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/fo...6&sid=6cf9401627a9d92bedee051637b0dbfd#p28476

nppeders said:

I'm thinking about doing the New Glarus Belgian Red Clone that I've seen in Zymurgy...

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Bringing this thread back to life. Has anyone been able to get close with this one? Also, anyone have the exact Zymurgy clone recipe? Sounds like it might have been July/August 2007.

This is what I found elsewhere on the internet (besides the link in the last post):

New Glarus Wisconsin Belgian red Ale Clone
5# 2-row pale or 4# LME
2# wheat malt or 1.5# WME
6 oz 40L crystal
.5 oz belgian roast barley
4 qt Knudsen Just tart Cherry Juice
1 oz Hallertau (aged 1 year?) - 60 min boil
.25 oz Oak chips (optional)
Belgian Wheat Ale or regualr Ale yeast

The object here is to get 4.5 gallons of wort, boil down to 4 gallons & ferment it. Then rack 4 gallons onto the 1 gallon of cherry juice & ferment again. when finished, lager it at 32-35 for 4-6 weeks. Add oak chips in the last week.

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EDIT: Also found this, but no one seems to say how close they got to the real thing.

ja09 said:

EDIT: Also found this, but no one seems to say how close they got to the real thing.

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I don't have high hopes for a close clone when the writer starts off his article by saying he's never had the commercial example of the brew...

I am trying to clone this brew as it is a family favorite and not living close enough to Wisconsin to get it easily. And worse because it wasn't even available this year due to last years cherry shortage...