Cherry vanilla cream ale

[wells11]

I am.putting together a sweet cherry vanilla cream ale and need some input on my hops I was thinking Nelson saivon.

Thoughts?

 

[c673986]

I'm kind of leaning toward no bittering hops at all. I think that may yield a cherry nyquil flavor. If you do go with some bitterness, US Saaz has a particularly smoothness to the bitter that would be nice. And when you say "cream ale" is that a typical cream ale or are you going to add lactose. .5 lbs per 5-6 gal. would work for the lactose.

 

[wells11]

I'm kind of leaning toward no bittering hops at all. I think that may yield a cherry nyquil flavor. If you do go with some bitterness, US Saaz has a particularly smoothness to the bitter that would be nice. And when you say "cream ale" is that a typical cream ale or are you going to add lactose. .5 lbs per 5-6 gal. would work for the lactose.

I was going to add .5 during boil and thought of doing another.5lb at kegging to help bring out the cherry

 

[Aaron Beers]

I would suggest skipping the hops entirely. Cherries contribute a lot of acid, and high acid + bitterness is generally not palatable, though your palate may vary. And generally speaking, people expect sour when eating cherries, not bitter.

For the lactose, I'd ad it all at once. I'm not clear on why you're thinking of splitting it. I'd add it at the end of the boil so it has a chance to dissolve with the heat. If you add it while kegging, how are you going to make sure it all dissolves? Shake the keg?