Dry hopped Brett beer

I've been kicking around ideas for my next experimental beer.

Here's what I thought up today: English hopped DIPA, but only doing FWHoping and early bittering hops. Primary ferment it with an English ale yeast. Rack it. Brett it up for 6 months. Heavily dry hop it for a week or two and then bottle.

Anyone try this before?

Why dry hp and use Brett? The hops will drown out the Brett character...

I was thinking 2 things:

1) 6 months in the carboy and I'm going to loose any late hop additions to aging.

2) I'm more interested in the sour than horse blanket or barnyard.

maybe I should sour mash it or use wild yeast instead.

Orval dry hops and uses brett. Brewery Ommegang dry hops and finishes their beer with brett in their Biere de Mars. Both are fantastic beers!! I dunno if I would heavily dry hop this beer though...

That's good to hear because Orval was one of the Brett strains I was thinking of.

Maybe a DIPA isn't quite the way to go, but I'm thinking of something in the 8-9% range, not Belgian, not sweet, not malty, and with adequate hoping.

Here is what I'm thinking so far:

English IPA, IBU around 50, OG around 1.060, hopped with Fuggles and Progress. Ferment with either Wyeast's London Ale III or Chico for 2 weeks. Rack onto small amount of oak chips.

Pitch either Belgian Lambic Blend or Lacto w/Orval culture. Check in on it at 6 months. When "ready" dry hop 1 to 2oz of Progress and/or Fuggles. Bottle.

My concern with a sour mash is the smell.

My concern with pitching lacto only is excessive ropy flavors.

If it keeps some Brett character, great. If not, I've got the sour I want.

See if you can find a bottle of Mikkeller USAlive. I think they did about what you're going for. http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/13307/48238

I imagine it will take some playing around with quantities and hop varieties to get a balance between flavors and aromas.

If you just want the sourness and not the brett character, why not just add lactic acid to taste?

First i have no idea how much to begin with when adding lactic acid to taste. Since I wouldn't want to over do it on the first try, probably start so low that I'd be titrating forever.

Second, I'd still worry about long term ropiness developing without the Brett there to clean it up.

stageseven said:

See if you can find a bottle of Mikkeller USAlive. I think they did about what you're going for. http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/13307/48238

I imagine it will take some playing around with quantities and hop varieties to get a balance between flavors and aromas.

Click to expand...

It looks like Utah doesn't order Mikkeller. I'll have to see if I can find some in Idaho, Wyoming or Nevada.

Edit: it looks like Grand Junction CO might be my closest bet.

Beernik said:

First i have no idea how much to begin with when adding lactic acid to taste. Since I wouldn't want to over do it on the first try, probably start so low that I'd be titrating forever.

Second, I'd still worry about long term ropiness developing without the Brett there to clean it up.

Click to expand...

Lactic acid doesn't cause ropiness, that's a pedio thing.
Adding to taste is not difficult. Start with a ratio of about 1/4 tsp in 12 oz, see how you like it, add more to taste, and scale up in the bottling bucket.

My best tip would be to hop lightly for bittering and use a lot of aroma/finishing hops so that you get the flora but not the bitterness that would hide any sour notes. Dry hopping might not be necessary if you add alot of flameout hops @ 0minutes. Lactic acid addition will definitely help expedite the sourness. you'll get the barnyard aroma quickly with most wild yeasts, but the sourness from bugs will take an extensive amount of time that will kill the hoppiness you're shooting for. Also, why don't you scratch the traditional sacch and go with an all brett beer to, again, help expedite the sourness.

Good luck and let us know how it worked out and what you ended up doing.

All brett beers aren't sour.

maskednegator said:

All brett beers aren't sour.

Click to expand...

and zero sacch beers are sour (purposefully). the OP wants sour w/o barnyard so that's my best advise...

1/4 tsp lactic acid per 12oz works out to about 1/4 cup per 5 gallons, right? I'll have to investigate the cost of it.

I did some googling around last night on Brett IPAs and sour IPAs. It seems like there are a lot of Brett IPAs out there, not so much that emphasize the sour.

I'll go one of two ways. The first way is brewing an IPA with only hop additions greater than 30 minutes. Fermenting it like my lambic. When I'm ready to bottle, I'll dry hop for a week and bottle.

The other way is culture enough Brett for a 100% Brett beer. Brew a regular IPA with regular hop additions. Pitch the Brett. Dry hop as normal. Bottle.

Both options have a certain appeal. The first I could get started right away. The second would be faster, but would require a bit of time to gut enough Brett.

Edit: I checked out the lactic acid some more. I looks like 2.25 liquid ounces to 5 gallons. That's not too bad. I'll consider it some more too.

I'll make a decision by next week.

I just found a recipe in Radical Brewing that is close to what I'm shooting for:

Vatted Stale IPA
14lb Maris Otter
2lb biscuit/amber

3oz EKG for 60min
1.5oz EKG for 30min
5.0oz EKG for 5min

Primary ferment with brittish ale yeast. Secondary ferment with mixed lambic or Brett.

ABV: 7.5% - 8.5%
Bitterness: 90IBU
Maturation: 8 to 12 months

It's hit 100F here twice this week, so my cellar is too warm for fermenting until the end of August. I may switch to kolsch yeast and try fermenting in my lagering fridge. I'll have to investigate it. I decided to go the IIPA route. Here's what I've come up with so far. It's kind of and English version of Pliny with Brett.

13.5 lb. Pale Ale Malt
0.75 lb. 50L Crystal
1.0 lb. Carapils
1.0 lb. White candi sugar

Mash @ 152F

1.5oz Fuggles 90 minutes
1.5oz Progress 90 minutes
1.5oz Fuggles 45 minutes
1.5oz Progress 45 minutes
1.0oz Strisselspalt 30 minutes

Dry Hop: 1oz each Fuggles, Progress, and Strisselspalt for 13 days

Yeast: Primary fermentation London Ale III (Wyeast 1318). Secondary fermentation Belgian Lambic Blend (Wyeast 3278).

OG: 1.081
FG: 1.021 (likely less due to Bretts)
ABV: +7.8%
IBU: 94

I'm kind of getting tired waiting for fermentation temps in my cellar to drop below 70F (probably be end of August). So I'm thinking of replacing the pale malt with Pilsen and using Saison yeast. Fermentation temps will likely be in the 74-76F range.

Maybe change the hops to EKG, saaz, and/or hallertauer.

I just started culturing up the Orval Brett for this. I'll add Wyeast 3724 - Belgian Saison to the starter on Friday. Brewday is scheduled for Sunday.

The hops are still undecided. I stopped by the LBHS and they didn't have everything I wanted. Maybe EKG, Hallertauer, and Stryian unless Strisselspalt shows up between now and Friday. IBUs will be in the 40 - 50 range.

I haven't finalized the grain bill yet either. I'm thinking an OG around 1.082, FG around 1.017, and ABV around 8.5%.

I'm also thinking of adding most of the herbs in my garden: basil, rosemary, thyme, and lavender. I'm thinking of leaving the chives, arugala, and loveage out.

I'm also thinking of throwing in some zest, maybe lemon.

Okay here it is:

11.5# Pilsen
1.5# CaraVienne
1.0# Wheat
1.0# invert sugar

Mash schedule:
122F for 30 minutes
148F for 30 minutes
155F for 30 minutes or until conversion

Hops
2oz Styrian 90 minutes
1oz EKG 90 minutes
2oz Styrian 30 minutes
2oz Hallertauer 30 minutes

Dry Hops
1oz EKG 7 days before bottling
1oz Hallertauer 7 days before bottling

Yeast
White Labs 566 Belgian Saison
Orval dregs

OG = 1.082
FG = 1.014
ABV = 9%
IBU = 43
SRM = 7


Other additions that are still being considered:
Lavender, basil, Rosemary, oak, orange zest, lemon zest, mango.

The point of the extra additions are to give it a sunny, spring-summer flavor. I'm still working on those with my wife.

Also, because I changed to a higher attenuating yeast, I may drop out the invert sugar and drop the ABV back down to 8.3%

I'm a little late to the party here, but Victory does this with Wild Devil, which is their IPA (Hop Devil) aged with Brett.
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/345/42546
http://victorybeer.com/beers/wilddevil/

For what it's worth, I liked it.

I still plan on doing the Brett IIPA. But I think I'll wait for October when I have better temp control. Then I can let the Brett work on it from November to April, bottle it, and have it ready for next summer.

I'm doing the Saison version mainly because I'm tired of not brewing.

Edit: the Orval starter is finally having a significant amount of bubbling.

Edit2: my gallon starter may not be finished fermenting by brew time tomorrow. If I pitch the whole thing and do a 6 gallon batch, the ABV should drop down to about 8.3%.