Beer for Next Fall

[yard_bird]

I’m new here so I hope this is in the right forum; let me know if it should be moved.

Working on a recipe to brew in ~November 2018 for Fall/Winter 2019. I’m shooting towards a high gravity beer that falls alongside either Belgian Quad or Old Ale. This time last year, I brewed an old ale with Safale-04 and Wyeast Brett lambicus. I bottled this back in late July after several months of stable gravity. I’m fairly satisfied with how it turned out, having opened one 9/28/2018, but I feel it lacks complexity or some of the dried dark fruit I was aiming for. I’m excited to see what the future holds for it.

I thought I read somewhere that brett can act as a preservative because of how it works with oxygen. This aspect and the flavors I get from a brett secondary make brett a strong candidate for this beer as I intend to cellar it for a few years, similar to what Mike Tonsmeire did for his Courage clone. https://www.themadfermentationist.com/2007/11/courage-russian-imperial-stout.html?m=1

Could I get some guidance from this community? Potential recipes below:

Quad:
Fermentables to get ~1.090
83% Pilsner
12% D-180
5% Munich 10L

~30-35 IBUs of Hallertauer/Tettnanger leftovers at 60’

Wyeast 3787/5526

Co-pitch for primary, then secondary 6-10months on wine soaked oak

Old Ale:
Fermentables up to ~1.090
90%Maris Otter
~3%Crystal 60
~3%Crystal 120
~3%Pale Chocolate

~30-35IBUs of Fuggles at 60’

Safale-04/Wyeast 5526

Co pitch for primary, then secondary 6-10months on wine soaked oak

Unless I learn otherwise, I plan to mash @~155 to leave something for the brett to chew on. Open to thoughts on grain bill/hops/biology/anything.

Long story short: Looking for input on a Belgian Quad or old ale with brett that can cellar well.

Thanks.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Hey, welcome!

The Trappist yeast will definitely make a more interesting beer. Do some research to try to bring out the stone fruit.

Leave the beer in primary on the trub for more Brett character, especially more barnyard type funk.

Think about Special B malt for added complexity.

Any beer with Brett has no problem aging a year or more. Brett continues to utilize oxygen. Give it too much oxygen and it will it create acetic acid (vinegar), however.

Cheers!

 

[yard_bird]

Thanks for the reply. Do you estimate ~5% for the Special B? The only reason I didn’t include it is because I’ve seen it overdone.

Thanks for the info regarding the Brett interaction with the trub, very helpful.

I’ll be sure to post a final recipe when I end up brewing this.

 

[RPh_Guy]

3-4% Special B should be good.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Few quick thoughts :

S-04 is OK, but I'd go for something with a bit more character like WLP540, which despite the name is a British yeast, that's adapted to high ABV. So you don't get the phenolics of classic Belgian yeasts. I know some people like WLP500/1214 if you do want phenolics.

Brettanomyces claussenii (WLP645 etc) is the classic Brett of aged British beer, it's milder than most. But personally I find Brett dries things out a bit too much, and I like the traditional idea of blending old with new to get some freshness. I've got a vague plan to brew an annual "heavy", which gets split into 4. 1/4 gets drunk as is, 1/4 gets saved for next year's blend, and 1/2 gets blended with the 1/4 saved from last year. You'd probably have to do something to kill the Brett first - either Campden as Mike does, or it's probably not the worst beer to pasteurise. But I'll probably just go with "clean" to start with.

I think what you're looking for is the character than comes with invert sugars. Special B isn't bad, but really you need that sugar. See eg http://www.unholymess.com/blog/beer-brewing-info/making-brewers-invert/ I've also known people use 100g of a 2:1 mix of caramelised unrefined brown sugar and caramelised molasses. The other advantage of sugar is that you can add it during fermentation so that the yeast has an easier time.

Personally I can't have enough Goldings in my life, and an ounce or two at 10-15 minutes wouldn't hurt either recipe.

If you're doing big beers for keeping, then taking a small beer off the second runnings means you have something to drink in the meantime!

 

[yard_bird]

Thanks for your feedback Northern_Brewer.

Unfortunately I don’t have the experience to blend old beers with younger ones yet, but maybe one day. In terms of Brett drying the beer out too much: do you think tannins from the oak will add a noticeable amount of body? The old ale I made last year finished at 1.008 so I imagine the oak would help boost the body a little bit.

I may be mistaken, but I thought that homemade brewing sugar recipe created unfermentable sugar once it caramelized. I followed one from Mad Ferm’s blog and I believe even his recipe came out to be less than 50% fermentable. Without testing it, I’m not sure how it would affect my finishing gravity/flavor. I guess with his recipe though I wasn’t using demera sugar.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I'd argue that you've got it the wrong way round. Blending is easy - you get instant feedback on whether your blend is to your taste or not.

Working with wood is difficult - or at least, difficult to do well. You don't get any feedback on your choices for 3+ months, and you're introducing a whole load of new variables into the process (wood variety, degree of toasting, soaking etc) and a whole lot of new chemistry.

Which is one reason I've no direct experience of brewing with wood, but I can comment based on my experience of drinking beer from the wood. The main thing tannins contribute is astringency, which tends to reinforce the perception dry out a beer even more. My taste is on the dry side, but I'd worry that adding oak to a 1.008 beer will make dryness unpleasantly dominant. Wood works much better with a more luscious beer. So I'd either do Brett or wood but not both, or at least blend in a "both" beer with a majority of fresh beer.

At least that would be my taste - you're the head brewer.

Sugar - it varies, the only way to know is to experiment and see how it works in your process. At least with sugar it's easy to add a moderate amount to start with and then more if it needs it.

 

[Genuine]

I accidentally added almost a half pound of Special B to my Oktoberfest grain bill this year. Glad to say 7 weeks of lagering later and I’m pleased to report that it may have been the best mistake yet. It has all the malty notes you’d want in an Oktoberfest but then the special B comes through with another layer of flavor.

 

[yard_bird]

I’m drinking an old ale I made in February that follows a similar recipe to what I describe in my original post. However, the head retention is terrible, drooping to nothing seconds after the pour. I understand that this is characteristic of sour beers, but the nose is pretty closed without a few hefty glass swirls. Would adding wheat to my recipe help with head retention?


I’ve also done some research on English beers, as I don’t have very much experience brewing them and, living in the US, I feel like I have limited access to great examples. I’ve found that Safale S-04 doesn’t rank highly with brewers in terms of flavor. Are there other recommendations for other English yeasts? I’ve heard the Founder’s strain is good.

 

[jrgtr42]

If you're specifically looking for something to age for a year, you'll want to brew something big or sour. There was an article in Brew Your Own magazine a month or 2 ago specifically about brewing something to cellar.
Basically you'd want to do something like an imperial stout, quad, or the like, high alcohol to be able make it, or something sour. I have a clone of Russian River Consecration that I secondary for about a year before bottling. The current batch I brewed in late August '17, bottled early Septemper '18, and I plan to open the first in the next week or 2. Judging by samples, I'm really happy how it came out.
There was also an article in BYO several years ago about an old ale - in the recipe it basically says to age a year in secondary. Relatively simple recipe, IIRC, fairly high gravity, very large hop charges, but it's expected the hops would fade out after aging.

 

[specharka]

I'd argue that you've got it the wrong way round. Blending is easy - you get instant feedback on whether your blend is to your taste or not.

Working with wood is difficult - or at least, difficult to do well. You don't get any feedback on your choices for 3+ months, and you're introducing a whole load of new variables into the process (wood variety, degree of toasting, soaking etc) and a whole lot of new chemistry.

Which is one reason I've no direct experience of brewing with wood, but I can comment based on my experience of drinking beer from the wood. The main thing tannins contribute is astringency, which tends to reinforce the perception dry out a beer even more. My taste is on the dry side, but I'd worry that adding oak to a 1.008 beer will make dryness unpleasantly dominant. Wood works much better with a more luscious beer. So I'd either do Brett or wood but not both, or at least blend in a "both" beer with a majority of fresh beer.

At least that would be my taste - you're the head brewer.

Sugar - it varies, the only way to know is to experiment and see how it works in your process. At least with sugar it's easy to add a moderate amount to start with and then more if it needs it.

Actually tannins have the opposite effect at low finishing gravity — they provide palate-clinging polyphenols that increases the perception of mouthfeel and body. Which is why dry red wines and gueuze have a balanced palate despite the extremely low finishing gravity. Astringency from wood tannins does increase the perception of bitterness, which is why oaking beer is typically reserved for low BU:GU beers, whether that’s a wee heavy, old ale or a lambic. (I just wanted to make the distinction that it’s not necessarily the final gravity that matters).

I’ve made an old ale and aged it in a barrel with Brettanomyces and it turned out quite nice, especially after the oak had a chance to mellow a bit. If I get a chance to do it again I’ll make sure to age it in a carboy; the small barrel I had allowed way too much oxygen in and resulted in some acetic notes.

 

[hottpeper13]

I thought the Quad our group did is amazing, and we used the ABT 12 clone recipe which has the D180 candi sugar. Smells like black berry jam and tastes slightly of stone fruit. It was aged in a 25 gal bourbon barrel for 8 mos. I am a user of Special B in my RIS for the stone fruit it adds , but it can be over done. My next Quad will utilize the new D240.

 

[divrack]

All good advice here
I have a pretty good old Brett thing that has a bunch of special X that is similar to b. I mashed it high and it went from 08 something to only a bit below 03. I then added Brett and let it age, and it took it down to .014 which is pretty perfect. I also intentionally let the temperature swing about a lot in the winter which might have convinced the Brett to give up sooner, or it might have been the relatively high amount of complex sugar I left it.
I bet I couldn't recreate it if I tried mind you.
Agree with the Oak advice although a small amount can round out a beer, a large amount in a dry beer will make it teabaggy.
Possibly soak done cubes in port or something for a while to take the edge off and add some complexity.
I wouldn't worry too much about blending a really old beer unless you're going to agree it a long time as the Brett will be slow doing anything, especially if you can chill the blended beer and have cold crashed it a while.

 

[yard_bird]

I couldn’t decide which beer to brew yesterday so I chose both.

Belgian Dark Strong Recipe:
82% Pilsner malt
11% blend of D-45 and D-180 sugar
3% Special B
3% Wheat

Mashed 1.3qts/lb at 155F for 60 minutes.

30-35 IBU of Fuggle at 60 minutes, boiled for 75 minutes. I added the sugar blend during the last 10 minutes.

Collected around 3.5 gallons of 1.093 wort, was expecting closer to 3 gallons of 1.100.

My local homebrew store stopped carrying Wyeast, so I used WLP 530 which I’ve read is the same as Wyeast 3787. I co-pitched Imperial Yeast’s W15 Suburban Brett:
http://shop.greatfermentations.com/...imperial-organic-yeast/imperial-organic-yeast


Old Ale Recipe:
83% Maris Otter
8% Light Munich
2% Crystal 80
2% Melandoidin
2% Pale Chocolate
3% blend of D-45 and D-180 sugar

Mashed at 155F for 60 minutes and boiled for 75 minutes. 30-35 IBUS of Fuggle went in at 60 minutes. I added the sugar blend during the last 10 minutes.

I ended up with an extra quart of wort from the second runnings. I boiled this in a second pot until it was closer to 16oz and added to my main boil kettle probably halfway through. Collected 3 gallons of 1.090 wort.

I decided to use WLP 002 instead of Safale 04 for the Sacchromyces strain. I have limited experience brewing English beers, but I heard some people don’t like the taste of Safale 04. I co-pitched with Imperial Yeast’s W15, Suburban Brett.

I plan on adding either wine or bourbon soaked medium toast cubes in due time. This option is contingent on how these two beers taste in a few months. I will do my best to post an update.

 

[yard_bird]

I added 0.6 oz of port soaked medium toast American oak to the quad today.

Also, 0.6 oz of bourbon soaked medium toast American oak went into the old ale.

The SG of both is around 1.020/1.022; I was hoping to be in the mid to low teens by now since they were 1.020/1.024 in January. I’m hoping that as the temp rises where I am the brett gets a little more active. There are little pellicle rafts in both carboys, which shows me the brett is active, but it’s surprising to me that the mixed fermentation (especially the beer with WLP 530) has only gone down to 1.020 so far. As I see it, the results will become apparent in due time, and perhaps the oak will help balance the residual sugar.

As for flavor progress, both exhibit a nice funky cherry flavor from the brett. There’s a nice toasty/breadiness I get from both. The quad is showing some dark fruit character (Special B I think) while the old ale is closer to a brown ale.

 

[catdaddy66]

I like the Belgian dark strong ale (quad!) With wlp530! That yeast has been a consistent champ for my Westvleteren 12 clone. Most of my friends love this version and it's getting time to make another batch.

Your recipe looks really good also. Unfortunately I have not made an old ale recipe before so I have no advice there.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Brett metabolism slows down a lot above 8% ABV. Your beers are about 9.6 - 10.5% ABV. Expect more time to develop

Also, attenuation is strain dependent plus wort variables.

I intend to cellar it for a few years, similar to what Mike Tonsmeire did for his Courage clone. https://www.themadfermentationist.com/2007/11/courage-russian-imperial-stout.html?m=1

At bottling: "FG still 1.020 (80% AA, 10.8% abv)"

 

[yard_bird]

Thanks for the feedback folks. I was just looking at some style guidelines for these two styles (which I understand to be somewhat arbitrary when adding brett/oak) and discovered that I’m within the FG range for either style. I know from an outside perspective, something like this would be a “Belgian specialty” or “wood aged beer” but I like getting the base style numbers pretty close. For whatever reason I thought the FG for both of these styles was in the low teens.

 

[yard_bird]

Both beers have been on oak for two months. Decided to do a gravity check today.

Belgian quad is progressing nicely (1.020). Oak has contributed some balancing tannins and general toastiness and there is some alcoholic warmth that I assume is coming from the port. Nice bit of black pepper/general spice too which may be from the Zinfandel port.

Old ale is doing pretty well too (1.020). The bourbon is subtle, but plays pretty well with the toast/caramel from the base beer. Not as much straight forward oak character as the quad.

I’ll check on these two in another couple months. The oak has mixed a bit with the cherry from the brett, but I’m excited for when I can have them carbed, conditioned, and in a glass. Both samples are drinking somewhat like a wine, but obviously can draw conclusions on the end product this early.

 

[hottpeper13]

I love it when a plan comes together!

 

[catdaddy66]

I am going to rebrew my American brown ale that I made for the recent competition. It came out SO well that I will be adding it to my "house" list for permanent rotation.

 

[yard_bird]

Bottled both of these beers today. FG on both was still 1.020 so I figured it would be good to throw them into some Belgian bottles. I carbonated a little low for both styles in case the brett wants to keep chewing on the sugar in there over the next couple of years. Otherwise I am pretty satisfied with how they have developed so far. Looking forward to Thanksgiving or Christmas so I can open up one of the smaller Belgian bottles.

Thanks for all of your help so far, I’ll do my best to post an update when the time is right.

 

[yard_bird]

I opened up both of these beers the other day:

Quad: Low carbonation, no head, dark brown. Aroma is dried fruit and some loamy/damp/dusty brett to follow with some belgian character underneath as it warms and a hint of spice. Taste is predominantly dried cherries and damp brett. Port comes through as it warms/spice as well. Little to no oak character. Finish is not as dry as I would like, but about what was expected.

Old Ale: similar appearance as quad, similar nose as quad except with more malt and barrel character coming though. Vanilla/caramel from the bourbon or oak comes though. About the same level of attenuation as the quad, but the noticeable alcohol and oak that are absent in the quad help balance out some sweetness in this old ale.

In summary, the old ale is more toward my liking since it is easier to pin-point the separate flavors of brett, malt, and barrel. I think the quad would benefit from either a blend of port-soaked and new oak, or bourbon soaked oak as the quad and port taste pretty similar by themselves. Both beers drink very well at cellar temp in a wide glass, especially if allowed to breathe. Additionally, I am hopeful that the brett continues to drop the gravity a little bit by next year so there can be additional carbonation.

I will probably re-brew the quad with Orval dregs as the triple I made in January when from 1.101 to 1.002 in about the same timeframe as these. Also, while I like the dried cherry that the brett I used for this year’s batch has, I feel that the special b, D180 sugar, and the port already gave me enough of this sort of flavor.

 

[yard_bird]

Howdy brewers,
Recent events have driven me to my cellar where I have located several bottles of the old ale. Immediately I realized I need to brew this (with tweaks) every year. Part of what I believe makes this beer so good is patience which I understand is no news to sour brewers.

Poured dark brown, almost black with some amber highlights. Decent tan head reduces quickly to a ring.

Aroma is in direct contrast to appearance; bright cherry and dried fruit character followed by a pinch of funky and oakiness. However, this isn’t the same flavor as the bright acidity I get with lacto fermented beers. There’s an almost savory toasted scent I’m assuming is coming from the oak or bourbon. Maybe some sort of hop/brett spice. Bourbon or vanilla as it warms.

Flavor is in line with aroma. Dried, almost winey fruit leads. There is some brett character here as well. The brett covers the malt bill a little too much for my taste, but I can still pick out some toffee/caramel/bready malt flavors. Finish is refreshingly dry (unfortunately unlike the Belgian version of this beer). As it warms there is a bit of the cola flavor that I’m not so much a fan of.

Mouthfeel is always hard for me. The fairly robust carbonation doesn’t seem to stay in solution too long, but there’s enough astringency from either the oak or the grain bill to keep this from being sticky sweet. I could easily drink a second one of these (provided there’s a designated driver). Carbonation feels low despite foam stand from initial pour.

I love this recipe. I would probably increase the amount of oak the beer was exposed to as well as the time it sat on oak. That’s not to say this recipe isn’t good as is. I initially thought this would be a good candidate for wine soaked oak cubes, but with the brett throwing this much cherry, I am glad I didn’t go with more fruit flavors. If I were to come across some wine soaked oak, I would swap some of the D180 out for a lighter lovibond.

 

[Genuine]

I was just re-reading comments and wanted to say that a couple years ago, I accidentally put special B into an Oktoberfest, to the tune of 3.7% of the girst, and it was delicious. I'll never make another Oktoberfest without it.