Sauvignon Blaugnde Ale (Blonde Ale with sauvignon blanc grape and nelson sauvin hops)

[kchomebrew]

Local brewery in my neighborhood is having a wort transformation competition. They gave away 5 gals of their blonde ale wort and have provided homebrewers 2 months to turn in their entries for judging. I had a bunch of nelson sauvin hops sitting around and had recently had a Midas Touch from Dogfish and also sampled Boulevard's Nelson Hop ale so it got me thinking about adding some white wine type grapes and dry hopping with the nelson. Found a great article in BYO magazine that gave some notes on the Midas Touch clone recipe, so I followed some similar measurements. I've had this one kegged for about 2 weeks now and sampled it's damn good. Almost sad I'm drinking something like this in Oct. (would make a great beer for the summer/hotter months). I have to turn in 6 bottles in late Oct. for judging. If I win, they'll brew the recipe on their system and put it on tap in their pub (and I get a free keg also). With the aroma, taste, and look of this beer, I think I've got a good chance of winning. Posting the recipe (since I have to disclose it for the judges anyway). Will post some photos once I bottle (off my blichmann gun) and then can serve off my kegerator. Will also post how I place and judges notes on this one. Here's the recipe (I worked out the recipe based off the readings and samples I took after picking up the wort) and I've scaled it to brew on my 20 gal eHERMS system.

Kettle Vol. 5.96 gal @ 212 °F (1.043)
Efficiency: 90.0%
Attenuation: 80.0%

Style:
6 lb (75.0%) 2-Row Brewers Malt; Briess - added during mash
1 lb (12.5%) Cara-Pils® Malt; Briess - added during mash
1 lb (12.5%) Crystal Malt 10°L - added during mash
1 oz (25.0%) PalisadeTM (7.7%) - added during boil, boiled 90 m
23 oz Sauvignon Blanc grape concentrate - added to secondary fermenter
3 oz (75.0%) Nelson Sauvin (14.0%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
2 ea Fermentis S-04 Safale S-04 (primary)
1 ea Lalvin EC-1118 wine (champagne) yeast (secondary)

OG: 1.050
FG: 1.010
4.42 SRM
ABV: 5.2%
Bitterness: 28.8 IBU

Notes:
152F 90min. mash - ferment with US04 10 days down to 1.012 - transfer to secondary, add half can (23oz) of grape concentrate and champagne yeast to secondary - allow 1 week in secondary ferment and gravity will drop to 1.010 - add dry hops 7-10 days, cold crash 3 days and keg.

 

[kchomebrew]

Winners of the competition were announced. This one didn't place. Overall the scoring was fair. 34/50. Infact, every category scored well (aroma, appearance and mouthfeel were all perfect/almost perfect scores) except flavor and overall impression. Comments about the flavor mostly communicated that there was too much sour/acid from the sauvignon blanc grapes which made the finish a bit rough. Judges indicated they would have liked more sweetness from the malt to come through and less sour/acid. I'd agree with that. One of the judges commented that it would be interesting to see what happens with this beer in a year. I agree, so I bottled some 22oz. bottles and will let them sit and revisit this post in a year or so.

With that in mind, and if I was brewing this on my own, I'd make this a high ABV saison or maybe even a duvel type clone and do a mix of sauvignon blanc grape concentrate and muscat grape concentrate (i'd back off the amount I used and go 16oz per 5 gal. batch). I'd experiment by doing a 10 gal. batch and splitting the batch and doing one with the grape concentrate added during primary with no champagne yeast, and then doing the other batch with grape concentrate added in the secondary with the champagne yeast. Both would be dry hopped with Nelson Sauvin.

I'll post some pictures of the beer when I have a chance. Overall, I think there is potential in this style and I'm very interested to refine this because I believe it could be great.

 

[kchomebrew]

Here's a pic of the beer. Now about 3mo conditioned from the date yeast was pitched to the wort and grape concentrate added to the secondary. This has been one interesting beer to watch develop and now I think I have a good idea of what to do with using sauvignon blanc grape concentrate and champagne yeast in a secondary ferment process. This beer tasted awesome when it was extremely young, which tells me using significantly less concentrate during secondary fermentation might be an idea (12 oz. instead of 23oz) when brewing a sessionable beer with this in it. As the champagne yeast started working, the beer became harsh tasting and took quite awhile for the flavors to come together. With that in mind, I think a Belgian Blonde or high ABV saison would be the way to go to add 23oz. of concentrate. And that said, it would be a great idea to toss in some brett yeast and let it sit for 3 mo. in secondary fermentation. I'm sure I'll explore this again. I still have a bottle of this that I'll let sit for a year and see what happens also.

 

[kchomebrew]

Roughly 6 mo out now. All I can say is wow. The true Sauvignon blanc aroma and flavor has arrived. Gotta do this with a saison and Brett yeast. Or not. This is killer as is.



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[JF_HBrews]

Wow, sounds great! I hope to try something similar in the next few months.

 

[thrillhouse]

Very interested in trying something like this. Will likely use a saison yeast and add the concentrate to primary. Thanks for sharing the recipe!

 

[kchomebrew]

12

 

[CoreyDW]

I have a Late Hopped Sauvignon Blanc Ale brewing right now. I'm super excited to see how it turns out. I used Nelson and Hallertau Blanc hops.