gin bbl aged sour?

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MileHighBrewer

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Taking delivery on my gin barrel very soon. I'm not sure whether i want to run some clean beers through it first, or go balls deep and sour it immediately. Either way....i think my options are kinda limited.

So lets hear some thoughts....maybe a lime zest berliner? Lemony sour blonde ale? Super floral hopped and/or spiced saison? That's really about all i can think of. Its 15gal, so i could do my standard house recipe and then split it up later for various fruit/hop/seasoning....
 
Flavor-wise, a sour belgian blonde sounds like it would be good choice. A lot of gins have coriander and citrus in them so that flavor would mesh well, I think. You probably wouldn't want to leave it in the barrel for too long on the first use, though.
 
I think you could do something fruity too, like cran/blue berry with a lambic-type grain bill.
 
I would say a saison and a gose would be great options. If you want the gose can be a clean beer if you sour wort or mash then boil. I did a bourbon barrel gose that was great!
 
Anyone ever done a barrel Apfelwein? Somehow, a dry AW sounds good with gin flavors, maybe a twist of orange. I also think a Blonde would be interesting.
 
Anyone ever done a barrel Apfelwein? Somehow, a dry AW sounds good with gin flavors, maybe a twist of orange. I also think a Blonde would be interesting.

Shhhhh, SWMBO will read this and I'll end up hundreds of dollars deep buying gin barrels to make gin barrel apfelwein. This sounds friggin fantastic if its from a very citrus-y gin maker.
 
I skipped out on the group buy because I was nervous about having 15 gal. of any particular type of gin beer. It was nice timing, though, because I was already thinking of doing some gin-influenced beers.

Right now I have a fake "gin barrel" IPA going. I'm just using gin and heavy toast French oak to simulate the barrel. I went for a dry beer with a moderate level of bittering and lots of late hops. I used Nugget hops for bittering because I like the herbal character they impart when the fall off after a month or two. Amarillo, Simcoe and Columbus finishing hops to go along with the citrus and floral qualities of the gin. I'll dry hop the beer just before kegging and perhaps add a little citrus zest as well. I'm going for an IPA with a gin and tonic influence, basically.

The other idea I've been thinking about is a "gin barrel" wit. Coriander and citrus are used in gin, so the gin might be complementary to a wit. I also want to mix in a small (~20%) amount of sour beer to make a slightly tart wit. I'm still not sure if the sour blending and the gin influence will come together in one beer or two separate ones.
 
There is going to be another group buy before too long, in case you want to reconsider.

I am going to do a wit for the first run, i have decided. I have my starter cold crashing now to step up again. I will be doing primary in a VittlesVault 80, then into the barrel. After that I will do a berliner and finish some of it with lime zest (might do that on 5gal of the wit as well). Hopefully the 2 beers will remove most or all of the gin, looking forward to getting some bugs in that mini-beast. May buy another on the next group buy as well. I would love to have several 15 gal oak barrels funkin away!
 
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