Kreik Beer

[pkiller001]

Hey all:
I'm about as new to this as one can get, and already irrevocably hooked. I've just put my 3rd brewing attempt in the fermenter, and have begun planning some "special occasion" brews.
My girlfriend loves Belgian Kreik beer. We had an amazing one last March at a local bar here in Philly, and I was thinking of replicating it for her birthday in April. I know I have lots of time, but if it needs to be cellared for a while, I'd like it to be ready.
Other than recipe suggestions I have two questions/concerns:
1: most of the kreiks that I've tasted out of the bottle have a cough-syrup/fake cherry taste to them that I'd like to avoid.
2: I think the one from our bar was a "brown" beer, but I can't be sure. Are there sub-types of this beer that I'm not aware of?

Any suggestions would be appreciated: she's been a real champ about my sudden obsession with home brewing, I'd love to pay her back with a great brew just for her!

 

[BarleyWater]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but she ain't getting a kriek anytime soon.

If the lambic is to become a fruit lambic, the fruit will go in sometime around one to two years after brewing and the beer will sit on the fruit from three months to a year or more. If trying a kriek, a few months on the fruit should be sufficient.

Kriek is a type of Lambic, which has cherries added to it. It usually takes a few years to ferment a lambic, and it takes some very advanced brewing techniques, and you may not be quite there after only three batches. Here is the link to an article in BYO that has a recipe for lambic. BYO - Lambic Brewing

 

[pkiller001]

Oy.
That article was.... intense. You're right, I don't think I'm up for trying to meticulously recreate the fall flora of Flanders in my kitchen (it's the same reason I don't make sour dough bread).
Since I saw some of the "kriek-clone" recipes that might have been ready by April, I thought I might have had a shot. Most included some sort of cherry additive that wasn't real cherries; perhaps that explains the cough syrup taste we've noticed in several of the bottled varieties.

thanks for the response.

Maybe I'll try one of the cherry stouts I saw people talking about....

 

[punkideas]

I'll mention that if you do decide to do an authentic kriek, Wyeast and White Labs make good blends (especially Wyeast Roselaere blend). That article makes it seem like a more unapproachable process than it actually is. If you'd be interested in a serviceable kreik recipe that uses available blends, I'm sure I could scrounge one up. Your other option, which is easier and faster, is to do a sour mash to get some of the lambic tartness and funk (it's still not quite the same). A recipe you could base yours off of is at:
The Impatient Man's Lambic-ish Framboise - BrewBoard
Just replace the raspberries with cherries and you should be ok.

 

[pkiller001]

Been away from the boards for a few days; thanks for the tip...
After reading that recipe, I think I may well try it. I'm still extract brewing, so I think this recipe is beyond my current abilities, but if it really only takes 5-6 weeks, I can put it off for a few months; then my only problem will be finding cherries!

Once I'm a little better at all this I'll revisit it with further questions....

 

[chortly]

Has anyone tried the Impatient Lambic-ish?

 

[heyvail]

A quick way to a Kriek-like beer is to get a wheat beer recipe, use a Lambic liquid yeast strain of your choice and put some Cherry Puree in the secondary for a couple of weeks. I bought a similar kit from Midwest and was very pleased after 6 months. Still getting better!!!! More and more tart as time goes by. Granted, by definition it is not a true Lambic, but you could fool a few people!!

 

[heyvail]

Sorry, Northern Brewer, not midwest.

 

[bhoskins]

I was just searching for a cherry Kriek clone for those of us who don't have 2 years to spend on it. Annapolis Brewing has a kit that includes sterilized pitted cherries - a mix of sour and sweet, for a cherry kriek that sounds pretty darn good. They also give you some cherry extract, which I normally don't like to use, but you can add that or not at bottling time. This is the first place I've seen to provide the cherries and a pectin additive to eliminate the fruit haze. I'm going to try it. I'm also going to siphon a little off at bottling to add to a Belgian quad batch for a Three Philosophers Clone. I mean really, if there's only good stuff in it, how bad can it be?

 

[Saccharomyces]

If you look at the charts of lambic fermentations you'll see most of the flavor compounds that will be produced are in there after about 8-12 months, but for the next year or two the pH continues to lower slightly, so hypothetically you could stop fermentation at that point by stabilizing the brew and then add some acid blend to increase the tartness to the desired level. 8 months looks like a minimum though since the Brett is pretty pokey to finish its job. If you pulled the plug early it'd be sour but wouldn't have much "horse blanket" character and might still be buttery from the pediococcus. Not that I have tried.

 

[Bobby_M]

I've got some Kriek in a Cabernet barrel in my basement that's been cookin on the lambic blend for 3 months. It's so hard to leave alone. I'll have to thief a sample soon.

 

[pkiller001]

Update:
I ended up making my kreik using a basic recipe from my LHBS, Wyease Lambic blend. It sat in primary for something like 6 weeks, and when it was time to rack on fruit there were NO cheries to be found. I ended up using some sour cherry syrup from one of my nearby Polish grocery stores. It's been in secondary now for several months, and I'm going to bottle it this weekend. Last I tasted it, though, it was more like black-cherry wishniak than kriek. I'm hoping the last month has given the yeast time to dry it out a little more...

Now I'm getting excited about Wyeasts seasonal blends -- all those sour Belgian Yeasts available just in time to make a better, sour-er cherry beer!!

 

[Heckle]

Almost a year after your last post and I am wondering how this turned out...

 

[Brew-boy]

Hell my kreik has been on bugs for over a year now.

 

[pkiller001]

So -- I realize I let this thread die, and maybe should not have.

The beer is actually wonderful. Since it was a preasent for SWMBO, I've kept my greedy hands off, which means there's still a little less than a case left. It took a while for the bugs to eat through all the sugars provided by the cherry syrup, and ultimately there was very little cherry flavor left behind. I spiked it at bottling with a touch of cherry flavoring from the LHBS, but since no one in my household likes sweet lambics, I just did enough to give a little hint on the nose.

The beer continues to get better with time. At this point it has a nice thick head and a golden color, with some haze. There's plenty of funk on the nose, though not nearly as much as a cantillon. Flavor wise it has plenty of banyard funk, with some green apple and cherry pit flavors -- I think this really is the Bret shining through.

Unfortunately since I've moved from Philly to Boston my new stove lacks the power to brew on, and I haven't had the chance to rebrew this. I definately am going to, however. I may just leave out the cherry syrup all together. Depending on the time of year, i'll rack to some fruit, be it apples or berries, and see what happens.

Just before moving, however, I expiramented with a dark beer that I fermented with the same Wyeast Lambic blend. It's got similar yeast character, but I think the bugs broke down all the dextrans, and it has a fairly thin mouthfeel. Has anyone else tried something like this? If so, has anyone had success building a sour beer with a more substantial mouthfeel (along the lines of a porter?)

-A

 

[xwass]

I did a Brewer's Best Dunkelweizen extract kit and added 1lb of black cherry (boiled, crushed and strained) after fermentation was mostly complete. Didn't transfer to a secondary, but gave it another week in the primary bucket (probably should have given it at least another week before bottling).

It turned out great. The cherry has developed a little more of a sour note as it has aged in the bottle that compliments the dark malt and high carbonation nicely. The simplicity of the Dunkelweizen is a good base for the cherry.