Wine in beer?

[WFox93]

I'm in the very early stages of planning a couple wine infused beers for the summer. For both I'm thinking about pretty basic pale ales with wine added. One will be red wine infused and I'm definitely "oaking" that one. I'll soak medium toasted chips in the wine for a week or so then add them in the "secondary" (I'm running a FastFerment) and I plan that one for late summer.

The one I'm looking for a bit of advice on is my next brew here in a bout 3 weeks or so. I picked up an Eldeberry wine from a local winery that only does 100% fruit wines. It's delicious, it has a sweet spiciness about it and a lovely dark purple color if memory serves me. I'd really like to get the pure flavor and hopefully color into the beer but I'm at a loss of ow to do that exactly. I'm tempted to just add it after the boil, during the boil, during secondary, at bottling, oak with it or my wildest idea... mash with it. I only bought one bottle and I'm making a two gallon batch so I'm probably not adding the whole bottle.

Any of you fine folks use wine to make beer or am I absolutely insane? How would you or have you gone about it?

 

[S-Met]

It is outside of my experience to make, but have had several beers made with wine. Stone did one of their vertical series, I think with Gewurztraminer - too long ago to remember. I recently had a Belgian golden with chenin blanc. I didn't really love the Stone, but the micro I had was decent. I think I've had something from Rouge aged in a pinot barrel, but thats a different animal.

I'll be stopping by that micro brew later this week and I can ask when they added.

But here in the forums, check out Graff recipes. Beer/Cider may be a good model for you to use with wine.

 

[TwistedGray]

Last time I was in France I stopped by and talked with these guys (http://www.domainelescascades.fr/index.php/nos-productions/les-bieres) for a while, and the wine beer is quite unique. I'll say that ... would it be something I would drink on a daily? Absolutely not. Would it be something I would bring to a gathering for people to try? Absolutely! It's unique, interesting, and nothing like I've had anywhere else.

With that said, I doubt I could happily finish a bottle on my own. I have a few in the liquor cabinet collecting dus...errrrr aging!

 

[anteater8]

I would definitely add the wine at bottling/kegging, adding a bit at a time and sampling until the taste is where you want it. I've added a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc to a 5 gal batch of saison with great results, Chardonny and Cab into wild ales, and I've also been experimenting with adding Sauvignon Blanc to a NEIPA.

I would even argue that if you want to oak, use just the oak at first and add the wine separately. That way you have more control over each variable.

I've been pretty curious to experiment with fruit wines like the elderberry you mentioned. Something about adding blueberry wine to an imperial stout sounds amazing to me.

 

[radwizard]

I added a bottle of white wine to a Biere De Garde, that turned out great. I added the bottle directly to the keg and carbed on gas. It was stored cold for 1 month on a little french oak. I really liked that beer.

A dark Belgian with fruit wine sounds good to me.....

 

[JKaranka]

The only ones I've had are three of the Cantillon ones. They were good enough to take a couple of bottles home. Not sure how well they would work in a beer that is hoppy or not very dry.